"[2] Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova were arrested after a Pussy Riot performance that the band called a "punk prayer" inside Moscow's famous Christ the Savior Cathedral on February 21, 2012.

Tolokonnikova described "slave-like conditions", including working 16-hour days sewing police uniforms, and prisoners who suffered such severe frostbite that they had to have fingers and feet amputated.

[4]In addition to its purpose of shedding light on injustices in Russia's courts, law enforcement and prison systems, Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova said Mediazona was created to fill the void left by the Kremlin's crackdown on Russian independent media.

[5] Starting in 2014, several Russian media outlets had their editorial staff replaced by leadership more friendly to the Kremlin, leaving only a few independent channels and publications in existence.

Because of the heavy censorship by authorities there is no space for anything in the media that criticizes Putin's policies and tracks human rights abuses by Russian courts and law enforcement.

Courts, prisons, arrests, convictions, riots in facilities, political criminal cases, crimes by law enforcement officials — our new media outlet will try to cover it all.

[9] In March 2016, Mediazona journalist Yegor Skovoroda was attacked while traveling with a group of reporters and activists near Ordzhonikidzevskaya in Ingushetia, just west of the border with Chechnya.