Pussy Riot singer Maria Alyokhina goes on hunger strike

A JAILED member of the Pussy Riot radical rock group has announced she is going on hunger strike in protest over the authorities' failure to allow her to attend a parole hearing.

Maria Alyokhina, 24, told a court in the Ural Mountains city of Berezniki by video link from her prison camp on Wednesday she was going on hunger strike and ordering her lawyers to pull out of the parole hearing until she was brought to the court in person, Russian news agencies reported.

Alyokhina's announcement capped a sometimes farcical first day of the parole hearing which was marked by frequent breaks to decide on legal technicalities and almost no examination of the substance of the issue.

\"I declare a hunger strike and insist on my participation (in court),\" Alyokhina told the court by video link, quoted on Twitter by the radical art group Voina (War) which supports her and was present in court.

\"I forbid my lawyers to take part in the parole hearing until I am brought to court for the parole hearing.\"

As a result of her intervention, the hearing was adjoued until 1400 AEST on Thursday. It appears likely the rest of the process will take part without her lawyers present.

Feminist punk group Pussy Riot members, from left, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alekhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich sit in a glass cage at a court room in Moscow, Russi charged with hooliganism motivated by religious hatred after their punk performance against President Putin in Moscows main cathedral.