Prison test

On May 23, the Bereznikovsky court refused to Maria Alekhina in parole

Maria Alekhina participates in a meeting of the Bereznikovsky City Court on the video from the colony

During the year of prison life, Maria Alekhina has traveled from the nervous first-hand beginner to a confident prisoner. I saw her with her friends the day before the arrest when they were wanted. They did not have panic, but, like all normal people, they were afraid of prison unknown and asked "how is there?"

Then I saw them in court in Khamovniki and the Moscow City Court. They ardently defended their innocence, and Masha Alekhina was particularly ardor and intransigence to judicial arbitrariness. She, like a match, flashed from every injustice, regardless of the seriousness and significance of the event.

Masha was not dedicated to the prison subculture and therefore, following the stupid Soviets of friends, she asked the prison authorities to leave her in the investigative insulator in the Hozo -Service. Of course, there was no chance for this, but any request to the administration is a manifestation of weakness than this administration did not fail to use: since you are afraid of a criminal camp, it is on this path that we will spread rot. So life is arranged - what are you afraid of, then you get. And as soon as Masha arrived at the camp, the two Kumov litter arranged a provocation for her, and Masha got into a “safe place” - in a solitary camera in PKT (a chamber -type premises - an intra -lagar prison).

The camp authorities were happily - the dangerous prisoner was successfully isolated from everyone else. However, Masha quickly moved away from the shock caused by a clash with the criminal world, and an invincible thirst for justice inevitably brought her to the path of confrontation with the camp authorities. She defended her rights in a large and small, and the authorities answered her with the penalties and threats of more serious repression.

The authorities were not ready for one - to the fact that the ZEK would begin to defend his rights in court. Where is it seen so that the court sides the prisoner? Who would think to look for justice in this death place? Masha tried and she did something. Of course, she was not delayed by the execution of the sentence and did not free her ahead of schedule, but in two courts she repelled three penalties of four on her.

This is a very rare case - both according to the result and in the procedure. Typically, such cases are disassembled in 15-20 minutes, without any participation of the convicted person and with an unchanging negative result for him. Here, the case was listed for many days, with the participation of more than one defender and a detailed study of all circumstances. Of course, support from the will, and the attention of the press, and international solidarity were important.

Masha Alekhina managed to break the camp system. The actions of the colony authorities were recognized as illegal. When Masha walked along the Zhilzon to the camp club, where her trial passed through the video, all the convicts smiled and waved her hands. They understood that Alekhina was standing not only for themselves, but for all of them. Masha has normal relations with the rest of the convicts. No one is particularly interested in her “crime”. All conversations of the year ago that in the criminal zone of girls from Pussy Riot will immediately tear off the Orthodox-backed criminals, as they were, remained the chatter of the Primrevsky idlers, who did not know either the prison or the people. With rare exceptions, you yourself are always important in prison, not what happened to you before the arrest.

The court of parole ended with nothing. It was an empty venture. The defense had to be proved that Alekhina could continue to correction outside the walls of the prison. Correction - from what? Prove the unacceptable - hopeless activity. Masha went to court ono reluctantly, and with pleasure arranged for the court obstruction, as soon as her rights to defense began to seriously violate. She lost in court, but won in public opinion. For the sake of the result, the court attracted the protection of an outsider and was forced to seriously violate the criminal procedure norms. After all, this is also a kind of victory - to dip the wrong court face into the mud, with which he will have to live either, or have a long and hard to wash.

The striking contrast was Alekhina's speeches with the final word in the court to postpone the sentence and her statement in the court of parole. In the first case, she expressed hope for the humanity and justice of the court, completely not believing in it, which is why her words were inaccurate, and the tone was uncertain. In a completely different way, she read on May 23 of her statements to be withdrawn to the judge and the prosecutor and her refusal to participate in the case. She spoke slowly, confidently, with taste, with understanding her absolute correctness and fidelity of the choice made. The tone of her appeal to the court was even somewhat arrogant, and she gave the colony to the colony to be transferred to the court by fax, without even turning her heads to him. This remarkable confidence in its rightness and superiority over the screws of the repressive system gives the prisoner of power and helps him survive in merciless conditions of camp life.

As her defender and representative in the courts, I received a date with Masha. I watched how she was holding, how she talks with officers and younger supervisor. Not a shadow of humility, no abusion or sagging the weak before the strong. But there is already no previous temper for every reason. She holds confidently, with dignity, sometimes ironically. She behaves as a wise with the experience of ZEK. Alekhina does not accept their rules of the game, and they know about it. They treat her cautiously and respectfully. A person who has managed to give the camp authorities so much trouble and troubles is worth it to treat him with a wary.

Once the rigid rejection of the Soviet lifestyle and the lawless repressive system became the best part of the dissident tradition. This made it possible to maintain its dignity in any conditions, although it was life -threatening. It was always a personal choice, and it had to be made more than once and for all, but constantly, at every turn of the camp fate. I am in amazement and internal enthusiasm that Alekhina inherits this tradition, strengthening in the values ​​that lived a democratic movement in the Soviet era.

Not everyone can tell the court “I do not need your condescension, if it is based on lawlessness”. In the Soviet Union on political processes, dissidents sometimes refused to participate in the trial, thereby demonstrating their contempt for Soviet justice. They did not expect mercy or justice from him. Only getting rid of empty hopes, a person becomes free and for the unattainable authorities.

This is a difficult choice and a difficult road. It’s not easy to resist on this path. Life here sometimes hangs in the balance. A person who has made such a choice should help everyone that is possible.

Photo: ITAR-TASS