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By and large the current process is not about

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the three singers in the group Pussy Riot

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if that was the case then the proceedings here would be irrelevant

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It is the entire state system of the Russian Federation which is on trial

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and which, to its own detriment, takes such pleasure in inflicting cruelty on people

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and indifference to human respect and dignity.

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As bad as the very worst of Russian history.

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The simulation of a court process comes close to the standards of Stalin's "troikas" [extrajudicial panels]

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to my deep regret.

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Thus, we have our investigator, lawyer and judge.

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And then, what’s more, what all three of them do and say and decide

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is determined by a political demand for repression.

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Who is guilty for what happened during

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the performance at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour

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and the trial which followed our concert?

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The authoritarian political system is guilty.

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That which Pussy Riot does, is opposition art

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or even politics, taking on forms developed by art.

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In any case it is the kind of civil activity

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under conditions of pressure from a corporate state system

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on basic human rights

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on civil and political freedoms.

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Many people, who have been methodically robbed of their freedoms

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are now rebelling.

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We are looking for sincerity and simplicity

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and we found both in our punk performances.

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Passion, sincerity, and naivety are above hypocrisy, deceit, feigned modesty, and hiding your crime.

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The country's top brass stand in cathedral with righteous faces

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but they are sly, their sins are far greater than ours.

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We do our political punk concerts because

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the Russian state system is ruled by such

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stiffness, opacity, and class

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and policies are subject only to narrow corporate interests

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so much so that Russian air makes us ill.

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Against our wishes, we are made to act and live

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with the politically coercive and violent techniques

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to control social processes.

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The situation, when the most important political institutions

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are the state's disciplinary structures,

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law enforcement, the army, the police, the security services

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and the corresponding means for achieving political stability involve

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prisons, preventive detention, mechanisms of strict control over the behaviour of citizens.

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We also do not like the forced passivity of most of the civilian population

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and also the complete domination of executive branch

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over the legislature and judiciary.

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In addition, we are sincerely annoyed

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at the scandalously low level of political culture, built on fear

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a level which consciously supports the state system and its cronies.

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Just look at what Patriarch Kirill says

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that Orthodox believers do not attend the demonstrations.

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We are annoyed by the scandalous weakness

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of community connections within society.

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We do not like the state's manipulation of public opinion

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easily carried out thanks to tight control over most media

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by state agencies, and for example,

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the exceptionally arrogant and base distortion of facts and words in the campaign against Pussy Riot,

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launched in almost all Russian media,

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except for independent ones, a rarity in this political system.

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Nonetheless I now state that

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even though this situation is authoritarian

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and even though the political system is authoritarian

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I still see the collapse of this political system

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in its response to the three members of Pussy Riot

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because that which the system depends on, was wrong.

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Unfortunately for the system, Russia as a whole does not condemn us

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and with every day more and more people believe us and believe in us

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and think we should be free rather than behind bars.

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I can see this from people I meet.

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I meet people who represent the system, who work for the relevant agencies.

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And every day there are more and more people who wish us well

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who hope for our success and especially for our release

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who say our political act was justified

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More and more, people tell us

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At first, we weren't sure you could have done this

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but every day there are more and more people who say

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Time is proving to us that your political gesture was correct.

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You have exposed the cancer in this political system and dealt a blow to a nest of vipers, which then turned on you.

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These people are trying to make life easier for us in whatever way they can

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and we are very grateful to them for that

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We are grateful to all those who, free themselves, speak out in our support.

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There are a vast number, I know.

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I know that a huge number of Orthodox people are standing up for us.

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They are praying for us outside the courtroom

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for the members of Pussy Riot who are incarcerated.

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We’ve seen the booklets Orthodox people are handing out

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with prayers for those in prison

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This shows that there isn’t a unified social group of Orthodox believers

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as the prosecution is claiming.

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No such thing exists.

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More and more believers are starting to defend Pussy Riot.

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They don’t think what we did deserves even five months in detention

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much less the three years in prison the prosecutor would like.

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And every day, more and more people realize

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that if this political system has ganged up to this extent against three girls

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for a 30-second performance in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour

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it means the system is afraid of the truth

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and afraid of our sincerity and directness

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We haven’t dissembled, not for a second

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not for a minute during this trial

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but the other side is dissembling too much and people can sense it.

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People can sense the truth.

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Truth really does have some kind of ontological, existential superiority over lies

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and this is written in the Bible, in the Old Testament in particular.

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In the end, the ways of truth always triumph over the ways of wickedness, guile and lies.

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And with each day that passes,

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the ways of truth are more and more triumphant

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even though we are still behind bars

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and are likely to be here a lot longer yet.

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Madonna performed yesterday [7 August].

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She appeared with Pussy Riot written on her back.

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More and more people can see

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that we are being held here unlawfully and on a completely false charge

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I’m overwhelmed by this

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I am overwhelmed that truth really does triumph over lies

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even though physically we are here in a cage.

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We are freer than the people sitting opposite us

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for the prosecution because we can say everything we like

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and we do, but those people sitting there say only what political censorship allows them to say.

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They can’t speak words like “punk prayer” or "Virgin Mary, Banish Putin!”

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They can’t say the lines from our punk prayer that have to do with the political system.

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Perhaps they think it wouldn’t be a bad thing to send us to jail

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because we are rising up against Putin and his system as well

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but they can’t say so because that’s not allowed either.

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Their mouths are sewn shut. Unfortunately, they are mere puppets.

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I hope they realize this and also take the road to freedom, truth and sincerity

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because these are superior to stasis, contrived decency and hypocrisy.

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Stasis and the search for truth are always in opposition to one another

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and in this case, at this trial,

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we can see people who are trying to find the truth

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and people who are trying to enslave those who want to find the truth.

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Humans are beings who always make mistakes.

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They are not perfect.

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They strive for wisdom but never actually have it.

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That’s precisely why philosophy came into being,

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precisely because philosophers are people who love wisdom and strive for it,

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but never actually possesses it

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and it is what drives them to act and to think

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and, ultimately, to live the way they do.

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This is what made us go into the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour,

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and I think that Christianity, as I’ve understood it from studying the Old and New Testaments,

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supports the search for truth and a constant overcoming of the self,

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overcoming what you used to be.

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Christ didn’t associate with prostitutes for nothing.

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He said, ‘I help those who have gone astray and forgive them’

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but for some reason I can’t see any of that at our trial,

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which is taking place under the banner of Christianity.

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I think the prosecutor is defying Christianity.

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The lawyer wants nothing to do with the injured parties.

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Here’s how I understand this:

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Two days ago, Lawyer Taratukhin made a speech

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in which he wanted everyone to understand that he had no sympathy with the people he is representing.

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This means he’s not ethically comfortable representing

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people who want to send the three members of Pussy Riot to jail.

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Why they want to do this, I don’t know.

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Perhaps it is their right.

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The lawyer was embarrassed

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the shouts of “Shame! Executioners!” had got to him

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which goes to show that truth and goodness always triumph over lies and evil.

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I think some higher powers are guiding the speeches of the lawyers for the other side

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when, time after time, they make mistakes in what they say

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and call us the “injured parties”.

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Almost all the lawyers are doing it,

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including Lawyer Pavlova who is very negatively disposed towards us.

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Nevertheless, some higher powers are causing her

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to say "the injured parties" about us rather than the people she’s defending, us.

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I wouldn’t give people labels.

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I don’t think there are winners or losers here,

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injured parties or accused.

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We just need to make contact,

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to establish a dialogue and a joint search for truth,

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to seek wisdom together,

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to be philosophers together,

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rather than stigmatizing and labelling people.

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This is one of the worst things people can do

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and Christ condemned it.

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We have been subjected to abuse during this trial.

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Who would have thought that a person and the state system he controls

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would be repeatedly capable of entirely wanton evil?

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Who would have thought that history and particularly Stalin’s Great Terror

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not so very long ago, would not be taught at all?

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It makes you want to weep to see how the methods of the medieval inquisition are brought out

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by the law-enforcement and judicial system of the Russian Federation, which is our country.

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Since the time of our arrest, however, we are no longer able to weep.

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We’ve forgotten how to cry.

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At our punk concerts we used to shout as best we could

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about the iniquities of the authorities and now we’ve been robbed of our voice.

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This whole trial refuses to hear us

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and I mean hear us

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which involves understanding and, moreover, thinking.

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I think every individual wants to attain wisdom, to be a philosopher

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not just people who happen to have studied philosophy.

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That’s nothing.

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Formal education is nothing in itself

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and Lawyer Pavlova is constantly accusing us of not being sufficiently well-educated.

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I think though that the most important thing

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is the desire to know and to understand,

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and that’s something people can do for themselves

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outside of educational establishments,

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and the trappings of academic degrees don’t mean anything in this instance.

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Someone can have a vast fund of knowledge

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and for all that not be human.

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Pythagoras said: ‘the learning of many things does not teach understanding’.

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Unfortunately, that’s something we are forced to observe here.

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It’s just a stage setting and bits of the natural world,

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bodies brought into the courtroom.

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If, after many days of asking, talking and doing battle

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our petitions are examined, they are inevitably rejected.

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The court, on the other hand

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unfortunately for us and for our country

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listens to the prosecutor who repeatedly distorts our comments and statements with impunity

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in a bid to neutralize them.

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There is no attempt to conceal this breach in an adversarial system.

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It even appears to be for show.

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On 30th July, the first day of the trial,

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we presented our response to the accusations.

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The document we wrote was read by defence lawyer Volkov

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because the court categorically refused to let the defendants speak.

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It was the first time in five months of imprisonment that we could communicate

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Prior to that we were in prison, in confinement.

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We can’t do anything there.

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We can’t make statements. We can’t make films.

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We don’t have the internet in there.

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We can’t even give our lawyer a bit of paper because that’s banned too.

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Our first chance to speak came on 30th July.

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We called for contact and dialogue

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rather than conflict and opposition.

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We reached out a hand to those

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who, for some reason, assume we are their enemies.

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In response they laughed at us

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and spat in our outstretched hands.

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You’re disingenuous, they told us.

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But they needn’t have bothered.

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Don’t judge others by your own standards.

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We were always sincere in what we said,

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saying exactly what we thought,

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out of childish naïvety,

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sure, but we don’t regret anything we said,

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even on that day.

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We are reviled but we do not intend to speak evil in return.

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We are in desperate straits but do not despair.

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We are persecuted but not forsaken.

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It’s easy to humiliate and crush people who are open,

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but when I am weak, then I am strong.

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Listen to us rather than to Arkady Mamontov talking about us.

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Don’t twist and distort everything we say.

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Let us enter into dialogue and contact with the country,

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which is ours too, not just Putin’s and the Patriarch’s.

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Like Solzhenitsyn, I believe that in the end, words will crush concrete.

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Solzhenitsyn wrote, “the word is more sincere than concrete, so words are not trifles.

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Once noble people mobilize, their words will crush concrete.”

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Katya, Masha and I are in jail

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but I don’t consider that we’ve been defeated.

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Just as the dissidents weren’t defeated.

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When they disappeared into psychiatric hospitals and prisons,

255
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they passed judgement on the country.

256
00:17:28,982 --> 00:17:32,836
The era’s art of creating an image knew no winners or losers.

257
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The Oberiu poets remained artists to the very end,

258
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something impossible to explain or understand

259
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since they were purged in 1937.

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Vvedensky wrote: "We like what can’t be understood, What can’t be explained is our friend."

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According to the official report, Aleksandr Vvedensky died on 20 December 1941.

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We don’t know the cause,

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whether it was dysentery in the train after his arrest

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or a bullet from a guard.

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It was somewhere on the railway line between Voronezh and Kazan.

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Pussy Riot are Vvedensky’s disciples and his heirs.

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His principle of ‘bad rhythm’ is our own.

268
00:18:16,257 --> 00:18:19,531
He wrote: "It happens that two rhythms will come into your head,"

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a good one and a bad one and I choose the bad one.

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It will be the right one.

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What can’t be explained is our friend.

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The elitist, sophisticated occupations of the Oberiu poets,

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their search for meaning on the edge of sense

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was ultimately realized at the cost of their lives,

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swept away in the senseless Great Terror

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something impossible to explain.

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At the cost of their own lives

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the Oberiu poets unintentionally demonstrated

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that the feeling of meaninglessness and analogy,

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like a pain in the backside, was correct,

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but at the same time led art into the realm of history.

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The cost of taking part in creating history

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is always staggeringly high for people.

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But that taking part is the very spice of human life.

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Being poor while bestowing riches on many,

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having nothing but possessing everything.

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It is believed that the OBERIU dissidents are dead,

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but they live on.

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They are persecuted but they do not die.

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Do you remember why the young Dostoyevsky was given the death sentence?

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All he had done was to spend all his time with Socialists

292
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and at the Friday meetings of a friendly circle of free thinkers at Petrushevsky’s

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00:19:31,049 --> 00:19:36,142
he became acquainted with Charles Fourier and George Sand.

294
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At one of the last meetings, he read out Gogol’s letter to Belinsky,

295
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which was packed, according to the court,

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and I note, with childish expressions against the Orthodox Church and the supreme authorities.

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After all his preparations for the death penalty

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and ten dreadful, as he put it, "impossibly frightening minutes waiting to die"

299
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the announcement came that his sentence had been commuted

300
00:20:03,998 --> 00:20:09,037
to four years hard labour followed by military service.

301
00:20:09,037 --> 00:20:12,357
Socrates was accused of corrupting youth

302
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through his philosophical discourses

303
00:20:14,517 --> 00:20:17,535
and of not recognizing the gods of Athens.

304
00:20:17,535 --> 00:20:21,250
Socrates had a connection to a divine inner voice

305
00:20:21,250 --> 00:20:24,733
and was by no means a theomachist,

306
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something he often said himself.

307
00:20:27,195 --> 00:20:30,283
What did that matter, however, when he had angered the city

308
00:20:30,283 --> 00:20:35,585
with his critical, dialectical and unprejudiced thinking?

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Socrates was sentenced to death and, refusing to run away

310
00:20:43,820 --> 00:20:46,444
although he was given that option,

311
00:20:46,444 --> 00:20:53,328
he drank down a cup of poison in cold blood, hemlock.

312
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Have you forgotten the circumstances under which

313
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Stephen, follower of the Apostles, ended his earthly life?

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"Then they secretly induced men to say:

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'We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God.'

316
00:21:08,573 --> 00:21:11,266
And they stirred up the people, the elders and the scribes,

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00:21:11,266 --> 00:21:15,771
and they came upon him and dragged him away, and brought him before the Council.

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00:21:15,771 --> 00:21:18,232
And they put forward false witnesses who said

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'This man incessantly speaks against this holy place, and the Law.' "

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He was found guilty and stoned to death.

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And I hope everyone remembers what the Jews said to Jesus:

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We're stoning you not for any good work, but for blasphemy.

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And finally it would be well worth remembering this description of Christ:

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He is possessed of a demon and out of his mind.

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I believe that if leaders, tsars, elders, presidents and prime ministers, the people and the judges

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00:21:49,974 --> 00:21:53,991
really understood what "I desire mercy not sacrifice" meant,

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they would not condemn the innocent.

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Our leaders are currently in a hurry only to condemn

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and not at all to show mercy.

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Incidentally, we thank Dmitry Medvedev for his latest wonderful aphorism.

331
00:22:08,805 --> 00:22:13,565
If Medvedev gave his presidency the slogan: "Freedom is better than non-freedom"

332
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then, thanks to Medvedev’s felicitous saying,

333
00:22:16,305 --> 00:22:21,808
Putin’s third term has a good chance of being known by a new aphorism:

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Prison is better than stoning

335
00:22:27,451 --> 00:22:30,795
I would like you to think carefully

336
00:22:30,795 --> 00:22:34,719
about the following reflection by Montaigne

337
00:22:34,719 --> 00:22:37,273
from his Essays written in the 16th century.

338
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He wrote: "You are holding your opinions in too high a regard if you burn people alive for them."

339
00:22:43,798 --> 00:22:47,397
Is it worth accusing people and putting them in jail

340
00:22:47,397 --> 00:22:52,110
on the basis of totally unfounded conjectures by the prosecution?

341
00:22:52,110 --> 00:22:55,338
Since in actual fact we never were,

342
00:22:55,338 --> 00:22:59,471
and are not, motivated by religious hatred and hostility,

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00:22:59,471 --> 00:23:01,654
there is nothing left for our accusers

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00:23:01,654 --> 00:23:04,045
other than to draw on the aid of false witnesses.

345
00:23:04,045 --> 00:23:06,484
One of them, Motilda Ivashchenko,

346
00:23:06,484 --> 00:23:08,968
was ashamed and didn’t show up in court.

347
00:23:08,968 --> 00:23:11,290
That left the false witness of the expert examination

348
00:23:11,290 --> 00:23:13,426
by [Vsevolod] Troitsky, [Igor] Ponkin and Mrs [Vera] Abramenkova.

349
00:23:13,426 --> 00:23:16,050
And there is no evidence of any hatred or enmity on our part

350
00:23:16,050 --> 00:23:18,535
other than this expert examination.

351
00:23:18,535 --> 00:23:21,135
For this reason, if it is honourable and just,

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the court must rule the evidence inadmissible

353
00:23:24,572 --> 00:23:27,103
because it is not a strictly scientific or objective text

354
00:23:27,103 --> 00:23:30,493
but a filthy, lying bit of paper

355
00:23:30,493 --> 00:23:34,974
from the medieval days of the inquisition.

356
00:23:34,974 --> 00:23:39,108
There is no other evidence that remotely hints at a motive.

357
00:23:39,108 --> 00:23:42,614
The prosecution is reluctant to produce excerpts from the text of Pussy Riot interviews

358
00:23:42,614 --> 00:23:48,744
because they are primary evidence of this lack of motive.

359
00:23:48,744 --> 00:23:52,622
For the umpteenth time, I will quote this excerpt.

360
00:23:52,622 --> 00:23:57,010
I think it’s important. It was from an interview with Russky Reporter

361
00:23:57,010 --> 00:24:01,213
given the day after the concert at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour

362
00:24:01,213 --> 00:24:05,207
Our attitude toward religion, and toward Orthodoxy in particular

363
00:24:05,207 --> 00:24:08,225
is one of respect, and for this very reason we are distressed

364
00:24:08,225 --> 00:24:10,896
that the great and luminous Christian philosophy is being used so shabbily.

365
00:24:10,896 --> 00:24:16,376
We are very angry that something beautiful is being spoiled.

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00:24:16,376 --> 00:24:23,597
It still makes us angry and we find it very painful to watch.

367
00:24:23,597 --> 00:24:29,541
The lack on our part of any show of hatred or enmity

368
00:24:29,541 --> 00:24:33,814
has been attested by all the witnesses examined by the defence.

369
00:24:33,814 --> 00:24:36,995
And by the evidence of our characters.

370
00:24:36,995 --> 00:24:39,758
In addition to all the other character statements,

371
00:24:39,758 --> 00:24:44,495
I’d like you to consider the findings of the psychiatric and psychological tests

372
00:24:44,495 --> 00:24:46,724
which the investigator ordered me to undergo in detention.

373
00:24:46,724 --> 00:24:48,814
The expert’s findings were as follows:

374
00:24:48,814 --> 00:24:51,484
the values to which I am committed in my life are

375
00:24:51,484 --> 00:24:56,944
justice, mutual respect, humanity, equality and freedom.

376
00:24:56,944 --> 00:25:03,373
That’s what the expert said, someone who doesn’t know me

377
00:25:03,373 --> 00:25:06,227
and Investigator Ranchenko would probably

378
00:25:06,227 --> 00:25:10,755
have very much liked him to write something different.

379
00:25:10,755 --> 00:25:18,442
It would appear, however, that there are more people who live and value the truth

380
00:25:18,442 --> 00:25:23,224
and the Bible’s right about that.

381
00:25:23,224 --> 00:25:30,701
Finally, I’d like to quote a Pussy Riot song

382
00:25:30,701 --> 00:25:33,789
because, strange as it may seem

383
00:25:33,789 --> 00:25:36,482
all our songs have turned out to be prophetic

384
00:25:36,482 --> 00:25:38,758
including the one that says:

385
00:25:38,758 --> 00:25:43,959
The KGB chief, their number one saint, will escort protestors off to jail – that’s us.

386
00:25:43,959 --> 00:25:48,975
What I’d like to quote now, however, is the next line:

387
00:25:48,975 --> 00:25:56,528
Open the doors, off with the shoulder-straps, join us in a taste of freedom.

388
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That's it.

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00:25:59,454 --> 99:59:59,999
[Applause]