Three women who protested against Vladimir Putin in a “punk prayer” on the altar of Russia’s main cathedral go on trial.
The women from the band “Pussy Riot” face up to seven years in prison for an unsanctioned performance in February in which they entered Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral, ascended the altar and called on the Virgin Mary to “throw Putin out!”
Maria Alyokhina, 24, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29, were brought to Moscow’s Khamovniki court for Russia’s highest-profile trial since former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was convicted in 2010, for a second time, in the same courtroom where the Pussy Riot trial began.
Supporters chanted “Girls, we’re with you!” and “Victory!” as the women, each handcuffed by the wrist to a female officer, were led from a white and blue police van into the courthouse through a side entrance. Streets around the court, on a high Moscow river embankment, were closed.
“We did not want to offend anybody,” Tolokonnikova said, speaking to a defence lawyer who stood outside the enclosure. “We admit our political guilt, but not legal guilt.”
The stunt was designed to highlight the close relationship between the dominant Russian Orthodox Church and former KGB officer Putin, then prime minister, whose campaign to return to the presidency in a March election was backed clearly, if informally, by the leader of the church, Patriarch Kirill.
The protest offended many believers and enraged Kirill. The church, which has enjoyed a big revival since the demise of the officially atheist Communist Soviet Union in 1991 and is seeking more influence on secular life, cast the performance as part of a sinister campaign by “anti-Russian forces”.
The women are charged with hooliganism motivated by religious hatred or hostility.
The women looked thinner and paler than they did when they were jailed following the performance in late February, shortly before Putin, in power as president from 2000-2008 and then as prime minister, won a six-year presidential term on 4 March.
“She looks like she has been on a long hunger strike,” Stanislav Samutsevich said of his daughter. “Her cheeks are hollow … I’ve never seen her in such a state. I think this is like an inquisition, like mockery.”
A reporter on state-run Rossiya-24 television presented a different picture, focusing on occasional smiles and chuckles and an overall air of self-assuredness among the women, who whispered to each other as a prosecutor read the charges.
“Look at their faces; they are laughing and joking,” the reporter said on the news, adding that a viewer might think they were “continuing the action” they carried out at the cathedral.
The plight of the three women, who have been held in a courtroom cage during pre-trial hearings, has also drawn attention in the West, where governments are closely watching how Putin will handle dissent.
Rights groups and musicians such as Sting and the Red Hot Chili Peppers have expressed concern about the trial, reflecting doubts that Putin – who could serve until 2024 if re-elected in six years – will become more tolerant.
The trial comes as Putin, 59, is trying to forestall potential challenges and rein in his opponents, who hope to reignite the street protest movement this autumn.
Amnesty International has called for the release of the Pussy Riot members, two of whom have young children, saying the charges are not a “justifiable response to the peaceful – if, to many, offensive – expression of their political beliefs.”
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev dismissed criticism of the case in remarks published on Monday, saying the trial was a “serious ordeal” for the defendants and their families but that “one should be calm about it” and await the outcome.