Mikhail Khodorkovsky: “I am very ashamed and offended for the state”

It is painful to watch what is happening in the Khamovnichesky Court of Moscow, where Masha, Nadya and Katya are being tried. The word "judge" is applicable here only in the sense in which it was used by medieval inquisitors.

I know this “aquarium” in courtroom number 7 - it was made specifically “for Plato and me” when the ECHR recognized that keeping the defendants behind bars is humiliating and violates the Convention on Human Rights.

This is such a sophisticated mockery of people who dared to file a complaint with the ECHR: oh, you say that a cage with bars is bad, but you get a glass cage, a glass with an embrasure for negotiations with lawyers, in which you have to bend over hard, to say something. In the summer, in a glass cage you feel like a tropical fish - it’s hot, the air from the air conditioner in the hall does not circulate through the glass. It was difficult for me and Plato to stay in the “aquarium” all day long. I can’t imagine how the three of them poor girls fit in there...

I read about the judge’s refusals to request a reduction in the time of the court hearing, and about refusals to call an ambulance.

When you are taken from a pre-trial detention center to court, it happens like this: getting up before the general breakfast, marinating, bent over, in a “glass”, transporting through Moscow traffic jams - at least 2 hours. I was kept in “Matrosskaya Tishina” - it’s in the center, and the girls were taken from Pechatniki - which is twice as far away. They probably only spend about three hours on the road each way.

Two humiliating strip searches in the pre-trial detention center - before departure and after arrival, two more are carried out by the convoy. Total - at least four searches per day.

Then they handcuff me and drag me out of the car straight into the court entrance. You have 10 seconds to turn your head and look at the free world. If you're lucky, you notice someone you know. That’s why it’s so important to be “welcomed”: every smile of support at this moment is worth its weight in gold, helping to shake off 6 hours of bullying already endured since the moment you got up, and enter court feeling like a human again.

In court - either immediately into the courtroom, at a vigorous trot up the stairs, chained by one hand to the guard, or in the "escort" - wait until they are "launched."

And in the courtroom there is that same aquarium where you are required to adequately react to what is happening, answer questions, follow the testimony of witnesses...

How is it possible to monitor under such conditions? The girls don’t even have a place to put a notebook there - take notes throughout the court hearing “on your knees” if your back is fine... And so, you hope that the lawyers will write it down and that later they will give time to discuss what is happening with them.

Break, lunch. What's in the dry ration? Dry noodles, dry porridge. Not even the “bum package” is worse. By the time the noodles have time to dissolve in boiling water to perfection, the 20-minute break is over. But if someone suffers from kidney problems, such a diet is almost murder. I stopped eating during the second week of the process: it was better to sit on water all day.

The meeting ended, everyone went home. And the defendants are handcuffed - and back to the pre-trial detention center, through Moscow traffic jams. They arrive after the general dinner. Showers can only be taken on Saturday. C'est la vie... "Working day" - 20 hours. Lights out. If there is a court hearing tomorrow, they will raise it in 3 hours and the “procedure” will be repeated.

I don't know how girls can stand it...

It is not customary to talk about this in court, because it is not asked about it in court. It is not customary to complain about this in a pre-trial detention center, because for a pre-trial detention center this is the usual regime, and even if you complain, they will wake you up an hour earlier and bring you an hour later. But the judge, of course, knows about this regime. Torture?

If the restriction of familiarization with the case and the extension of the arrest are common lawlessness, then an 11-hour court hearing without a normal break even for lunch is similar to the execution of an order to complete the judicial investigation - and perhaps the debate - before the end of the Olympics, while the world media is busy with something else, and our shame does not sound so loud. The shame of a great country, a country of world-famous humanists and scientists, is rapidly turning into a backward Asian province.

I am very ashamed and offended. And it is not for these young girls that the mistakes of radicalism are excusable, but for the state, which disgraces our Russia with its lack of conscience.

We were deprived of a fair and independent court, the opportunity to defend ourselves and protect people from lawlessness. But we can, having recognized those who do arbitrariness for money and privileges - on the street, in a store, in a theater - politely but clearly explain to them and those around them who they are in our eyes, why we don’t respect them, why we don’t want We will help them in nothing and, on the contrary, we will oppose them in every detail.

This way we can maintain self-respect.

I urge all thinking, educated and simply good and kind people to send words of hope to the girls. Your support - the support of every person - is very important now for those who, by the will of evil forces, find themselves in captivity!

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