Translated material
Trial over Pussy Riot: the first day
Radio Liberty correspondents attempted to conduct a direct video broadcast from the building of the Khamovnichesky Court. RS correspondent Elena Vlasenko interviewed the politician Boris Nemtsov, journalist Olga Romanova, artist Andrei Biljo. Unfortunately, this broadcast for reasons without dependent reasons was interrupted. Mobile communications in the territory adjacent to the Hamovnic court is extremely not stable. The speed, as experts say, "jumps", which does not allow to maintain normally the quality of the broadcast. We apologize to users of the site.
Interview with Andrei Biljo :
Interview by Boris Nemtsov :
Intevation Olga Romanova :
The first half of the day RIA Novosti conducted direct video broadcast from the courtroom. However, according to the court order, after announced at 15 40 breaks, the broadcast was terminated. The Radio Liberty website is conducting a text online report on the meeting.
Before the trial, lawyer Mark Feigin wrote on her Twitter:
Around 10.30 Moscow time, a column of 25-30 people - opponents of Pussy Riot, approached the trial building. They launched two large posters. However, the police did not stop this action, despite the requests of people who came to support the accused.In the hall "dark" from the number of victims.
- Mark Feigin (@mark_Feygin) July 30, 2012
12 00 Moscow time . The trial began. The prosecution made a motion to ban video and photography, as well as online broadcasting from the courtroom during the study of evidence in the case. The lawyers of the victims and the victims themselves support this petition. Recall that RIA Novosti is conducting a direct video broadcast from the courtroom on the RAPSI website .
The side of protection objects to this petition.
12 07 Moscow time. Maria Alekhina makes a petition - she asks to give her the opportunity to get acquainted with material evidence (video, photos, information on electronic media), which she was not allowed to get acquainted during the investigation. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova acts with a similar petition.
Alekhina also asks to postpone meetings, since she was not given the opportunity to meet with lawyers on July 27.
Ekaterina Samutsevich asks for an additional meeting with lawyers - without her, she considers herself an obstacle to the process.
The lawyers of the accused also made applications for confidential meetings with their clients, who, through the fault of law enforcement agencies, did not take place on the eve of the meeting. And respectively transfer the next court hearing to a later date.
Lawyers also performed with a number of other petitions. Including they ask to call the authors of the examination in the Pussy Riot case.
Lawyer Violett Volkov asks to call a number of experts in the field of religion and contemporary art, as well as protodiacon Andrei Kuraev and Heydar Jemal. In addition, Volkova asks to invite Patriarch Kirill to the court.
12 30 Moscow time. Volkova’s lawyer reads the opinion of the Pussy Riot group of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, explaining the motives of the group’s performance in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. "We are not enemies of Christianity ... The opinion of Orthodox believers is important to us and we want all of them on our side, on the side of anti -authoritarian civilian activists, and therefore we came to the temple." The purpose of the punk performance is a protest against the support of Patriarch Kirill, presidential candidate Vladimir Putin. "If our passion seemed offensive to someone, we are very sorry about it ... And we ask us to forgive us ... Our ethical mistake was that we transferred our format for performing to the temple." Tolokonnikova recognizes the ethical mistake of Pussy Riot. "There is no article in the Criminal Code for the ethical outlord." And further: "We had only political and ethical motifs ... We had no hatred of believers ... and now for five months, as we have been specified." Tolokonnikova writes about his positive attitude towards religion. There are no signs of hostile attitude towards the Orthodox in the Pussy Riot act, there is no motive for religious hatred.
Next, Volkova reads a similar letter to Maria Alekhina - her opinion about the indictment. Alekhina states that she is Orthodox, and she has questions to which she would like to get answers from Patriarch Kirill. But it turns out that the Russian Orthodox Church loves only those of their children who vote for Putin. Further, Alekhina writes that the format of the performance is ordinary for the group. She also categorically refutes the motives of religious hatred, which supposedly lay at the basis of a punk summer. "I consider our speech an administrative offense. I did not have any religious hatred of the Orthodox and did not have any religious hatred."
Ekaterina Samutsevich also presented her opinion on the indictment in writing. He was also read out by the lawyer Volkov. Samutsevich emphasized the political nature of Pussy Riot. She rejects the motive of religious hatred, stating that their protest was directed against unliped power. That. that the Patriarch supported the current government, according to Samutsevich, is a violation of the principles of a secular state. Samutsevich draws attention to the absence of the first examination in the case, which did not find signs of religious hatred in the text of the punk-party.
13 00 Moscow time. The prosecution does not support the defense petition. Moreover, there are statements that the lawyers of the accused work poorly, consciously delaying the process. The lawyers of the victims accuse the court of “playing along” the defense of the accused, violating the Code of Criminal Procedure.
... Nadezhda Tolokonnikov, Maria Alekhina and Ekaterina Samutsevich were brought to court about an hour before the meeting. Radio reporter Freedom Yuri Timofeev recorded this moment in his photo report.
13 45 Moscow time. The court retired to the meeting.
About 15 00 Moscow time, the court continued the meeting. A number of applications of the accused were rejected. So, the court refused to summon as a witness in the Pussy Riot case by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Kirill, as well as expert-specialists to participate in the hearings.
In that time, the court supported the petition. The Khamovnican Court forbade photo and video recording of the interrogation of the victims in the process of the Pussy Riot punk group.
"Satisfy the petition of state prosecutors to prohibit photographing, video, filming at the time of interrogation of the victims, research of written materials of the case, material evidence," the judge said at the trial.
15 00 Moscow time. Reading the indictment began.
15 25 Moscow time. Maria Alekhina says she does not understand the essence of the accusation and demands to read out the indictment completely. “I cannot admit or not plead guilty, because I do not understand the essence of the accusation,” said Alekhina. The judge is clearly annoyed by the position of the accused. "You have a higher education and you may well figure it out ..." Then Alekhina again reminds that she was not given the opportunity to meet a lawyer on the eve of the process. The dialogue is more and more like a skirmish.
Tolokonnikova and Samutsevich said they did not plead guilty.
Further, the arrested expresses their attitude to the position of the prosecution. They briefly repeat what was formulated in the statements read today. They deny the motives of religious enmity and insist on the political motivation of a punk summer.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova says: "This is wildly brutally attributed to us the motive of religious enmity." And he explains that the campaign unleashed against her and her friends significantly complicates her stay in the pre -trial detention center. She emphasizes her respect for religion in general and for Orthodoxy - in particular. Tolokonnikova pleads his ethical guilt, but does not understand how to attract to the criminal responsibility of a person who violated the internal daily routine of the Church.
Ekaterina Samutsevich called the case "fully fabricated for political reasons."
Maria Alekhina said that the prosecution is leveled by the political and art component.
15 36 Moscow time. Lawyer Nikolai Polozov called the accusation insolvent. "This is an insult to the entire system of justice as a whole."
Lawyer Mark Feigin said that the charges could not be supported. It requires a review on the merits, says Feigin.
Lawyer Violett Volkov called the accusation far -fetched. "You cannot judge such accusations."
Further, the procedure for studying evidence was discussed. A break for 30 minutes is announced.
"... members of the Pussy Riot group, being in the premises of the Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church - the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, causing significant damage to the sacred values of the Christian ministry and encroaching on the sacramentality of the church sacrament, not reacting to the calls of the candlestick of the temple, illegally penetrated the enclosed part of the tempora Holy religious rites, which blasphemously humiliated the centuries -old foundations of the Russian Orthodox Church ... " .
So the indictment describes the events of February 21, 2012, in which, as the prosecutor’s office, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alekhina and Ekaterina Samutsevich took part.
Pussy Riot
16 40 Moscow time. The first to act as a Sokologorskaya love, who, as declared, "is engaged in the maintenance of candlesticks, icons and relics in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior." When she begins to speak, the accused declare: the glass prevents them from listening to the victim.
The RAPSI correspondent quotes the victim. According to her, every new act in the temple was more and more conditional. Her heart hurts from this.
"A woman can only get to the amvon during the wedding. Under the royal gates, outerwear, backpacks were thrown," the victim continues to describe the actions of Pussy Riot.
“Each memory causes bitterness,” the victim tells how the girls pushed the ark with the shrine and ran to the amvon, although she begged them not to perform such insolence. "Demonial spraying ... jumps, jumps, body movements, clenched fists. Legs lifted so high that it was visible below the belt," the victim describes the action. “Was it an art?” Asks the prosecutor of Sokologorskaya. “It was a Sabbath,” she answers.
Unfortunately, the RS correspondent failed to go to court after the break. We have to use the information of colleagues ..
After 17 30 Moscow time, the line of protection came to ask questions. To check if the victim of the Orthodox is, Volkova’s lawyer asked her to read the symbol of Vera, but the judge rejected this question. reports the website of RAPSI. In the same way, the vast majority of other issues that the defense wanted to ask the victim deviate.
He was rejected by the judge and the question of Ekaterina Samutsevich: why, if a violation of domestic rules is a criminal offense, does a warning about criminal liability for their violation are not hanging upon the entrance to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior?
18 52 . Nadezhda Tolokonnikova asks the victim if the word "feminist" is rude? The victim: "In the temple? Well, yes."
19 03 . The judge refuses to interrupt the court until the morning of the next day. Lawyers call it torture: the defendants did not feed all day.
The interrogation of the second victim - Istomin began. The victim Istomin tells that he was very worried after the Pussy Riot action: many people cried, someone even became bad, quoted Rapsey.
20.30. Lawyer Mark Feigin said that Pussy Riot’s defense intends to declare a discharge to the judge in the process. According to him, it is quite obvious that the verdict will be illegal. Dissatisfaction with the defense is caused by the fact that judge Marina Syrova rejects most of their petitions and questions. The lawyer also curled up that the judge refused to declare a break in the hearings, and since they raised the suspects at 5 in the morning, they spent the whole day in the courtroom and did not feed them, the defense regarded it as torture.
The allotment to the judge is rejected.
21 30 . The interrogation of the trampled continues. This time, the dates of the dates are altarik Vasily Tsyganyuk. Journalists are preparing to spend the night in court. The RAPSI website reports: Never online broadcasts from court hearings. They did not exceed 12 hours.
21 50 . A break was announced until July 31. The meeting will begin at 10 Chosov MSU
***
The lawyers of Pussy Riot participants initially doubted the objectivity and impartiality of the judicial investigation.
“Moral and ethical assessments are outside the Criminal Code for such acts,” said the lawyer of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova Mark Feigin . - And the fact that the prosecutor's office actually reduces the accusation of blasphemy and blasphemy, which are not a corpus delicti under Russian criminal law, emphasizes that the case is ordered. That is, this is a demonstrative punishment of people who go beyond the circle of those norms that the new state now claims. I think there is already a sentence and we will simply be announced to us. That is, the side of the protection is lower to the formal level in this matter.
From the very beginning of the case of Pussy Riot, their lawyers say: the actions of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alekhina and Ekaterina Samutsevich cannot be recognized by hooliganism in the sense that this word gives the Criminal Code. Lawyers compare the process with the Inquisition, when they burned for blasphemy on fire. The victim (mainly employees of the CTO "Bell A") is convinced of the opposite. So, for example, the lawyer of one of the guards of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior Mikhail Kuznetsov noted that his principal had lost his peace and began to suffer from insomnia after a pink-grain:
- His wound cannot be measured with hematomas, this wound, perhaps, a scar on the heart. It was very rude, it was crumbling, it was the actions of the Satanic model, it was blows on an invisible enemy, apparently on Orthodoxy or, perhaps, by the Patriarch, maybe the Lord God himself. And it was rehearsed. Therefore, it was a gross violation of public order, expressed in the gross behavior of a group of persons. And the behavior was rude: they beat their hands, they resisted, they did not want to leave, they threw their hoodies right there, at the place where the priest with a bowl is parted by the people. This disposition is fully implemented, the 213rd article. What administrative violation can we talk about here?
Mikhail Kuznetsov is convinced: in the Pussy Riot action, the Orthodox see the mystical component, "which is incomprehensible to the satanic atheists and other sympathetic, but well understandable to church people":
- The actions of the blasphemers are violated by the deepest, innermost feelings of these people. This value connects us into one people, it, this value, like the spine, holds the entire body of the state. Therefore, the destruction of Orthodoxy, to which this action was directed, it destroys Russia, it destroys our state. This is how you need to understand, ”says Mikhail Kuznetsov.
In the Pussy Riot case, seven volumes, the parties intend to interrogate several dozen witnesses in court.
“The prosecutor’s office goes to court with a completely absurd indictment, which is more reminiscent of the“ Witch Hammer ”treatise, and not a procedural document at all,” said Nikolai Polozov, lawyer Maria Alekhina. - Unfortunately, given the dynamics of this process, given its repressive orientation, I think that the court will fulfill the desire of the authorities that was set, namely, to consider the case in the shortest possible time and pass the verdict.
According to observers, the Pussy Riot case shared Russian society in half. Some require immediate liberation and complete rehabilitation of the defendants, others say that the process should become indicative for everyone who encroaching on the "spiritual basis of the state".
The international human rights organization Amnesty International doubts the objectivity of the trial in the case of the scandalous performance of the Pussy Riot punk group in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
“This process should never have taken place. Three musicians are judged for a legal protest - this is not a criminal crime. They should be released immediately,” the statement of the press secretary of Amnesty International for Europe and Central Asia, Lydia Araio, who received Interfax, said.
"They dared to encroach on two pillars of the Russian establishment - the Kremlin and the Orthodox Church. Despite the fact that many could calculate their action offensive, the sentence - up to seven years of prison for hooliganism, which can be expected, is wildly inadequate," said Arayo. And added:
"In any case, we have serious doubts about whether Maria Alekhina, Ekaterina Samutsevich and Tolokonnikova Hope, an honest trial due to an extremely detrimental atmosphere created by the statements of politicians and priests from the highest echelons of Russian society ... It is obvious that the process is politically motivated."
On the eve of the Pussy Riot group, who call themselves Balaklava, Sparrow and Squirrel, gave an exclusive interview to the Guardian newspaper, which stated that Putin was afraid of them. "Putin is afraid of the girls! Dictator Putin is actually afraid of people!" - the girls said. Pussy Riot participants noted that the performance in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was precisely a prayer.
The theme of Pussy Riot in an interview with the newspaper of the British newspaper The Times, the Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Medvedev. He believes that the trial of the punk group should be treated calmly: "Is there a sentence? He is not. Есть или нет в действиях участниц панк-группы уголовно наказуемые действия, по словам Дмитрия Медведева, предстоит определить суду. Обвиняемым повезет, считает Медведев, если суд не увидит состава преступления, так как они не понесут наказания и прославятся.
Премьер-министр однако признал, что нахождение этих женщин в тюрьме "довольно серьезное испытание для них и для их семей", - цитирует премьера агентство РИА "Новости".