Gulag

In case you missed it, two members of the Russian punk protest group, Pussy Riot, have been sentenced to hard labor.  Via the Guardian:

Two members of the anti-Kremlin punk band Pussy Riot have been sent to remote prison camps to serve their sentences, the group has said. 

Maria Alyokhina, 24, will serve the rest of her two-year term at a women's prison camp in Perm, a Siberian region notorious for hosting some of the Soviet Union's harshest camps. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, has been sent to Mordovia, a region that also hosts a high number of prisons. 

"These are the harshest camps of all the possible choices," the band said via its Twitter account on Monday. 

Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova were convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for performing an anti-Putin "punk anthem" in a Moscow cathedral in February. They argued that their conviction was part of a growing crackdown on free speech and political activism in Russia. 

They are expected to serve the rest of their sentences, which end in March 2014, in the camps, where conditions are reportedly dire.