 Source: Open Information Agency Photograph from the blog pussy-riot.livejournal.com The Moscow City Court today refused to consider the merits of an appeal by one of the members of the pop group Pussy Riot, Ekaterina Samutsevich, against a decision by the Zamoskvorechye District Court to declare the video clip of the punk prayer "Mother of God, Virgin Mary, Drive Putin Away!" extremist material. The Moscow City Court believed that the decision by the district court does not violate the rights and legal interests of Samutsevich, meaning she does not have the right to appeal against it. Moreover, Samutsevich's claims that the decision of the Zamoskvorechye District Court is unlawful and unfounded were not considered at all. This news was announced by Ekaterina Samutsevich's representative, lawyer for the Agora Human Rights Association Damir Gainutdinov. "In the criminal case against Samutsevich, Tolokonnikova and Alekhina the video clips and analysis of them were designed to find them guilty, clearly directly affecting their rights, but examining whether the video fell under the anti-extremism legislation apparently doesn't affect the convicted women's rights," says Candidate of Legal Sciences Damir Gainutdinov. "Personally I cannot see the logic. Let's see what the European Court has to say. That is the road that is currently open to us. It will be a separate appeal and I will be getting on with that in the very near future." Ekaterina Samutsevich was demanding that the decision of the Zamoskvorechye District Court declaring the video clip of the punk prayer Mother of God, Virgin Mary, Drive Putin Away! extremist material be overturned, says a correspondent for the Open Information Agency. Samutsevich is drawing attention to the fact that on 20 April 2012 materials containing evidence of a crime under Paragraph v of Part 2 of Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code ("actions aimed at inciting hatred or hostility, carried out by an organised group") were separated off from the criminal case against her into a separate procedure. This order by the investigator states, in particular, that: "Alekhina, Tolokonnikova and Samutsevich, together with persons unknown, made the video clip of the punk prayer Mother of God, Virgin Mary, Drive Putin Away! in the Cathedral, and the clip was subsequently posted on the websites youtube.com and pussy-riot.livejournal.com by persons unknown." Ekaterina Samutsevich says that the judicial investigation considers her to be one of the people who put together this video and believes that the court's decision on the current case could have an influence on the decision to bring a criminal prosecution under Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code. In addition, the ban on the distribution of the video violates the right of the participants of the protest in the Christ the Saviour Cathedral to express their opinions. She is convinced that in rejecting her appeal, the court of the first instance violated her right to participate in a civil case, present evidence and challenge the prosecutor's findings. Samutsevich considers the decision of the Zamoskvorechye District Court unlawful and unfounded because the court acted unlawfully in considering the case without the participation of an interested party; and the conclusions of the court are unfounded and do not correspond to the case files. Samutsevich points out that according to the transcript of the court hearing, "during the trial the court did not look at video materials, instead restricting itself to looking at a document detailing the results of a psycholinguistic study." In addition, Samutsevich believes that this document, which is in effect a forensic report, "does not comply with legal requirements on state forensic activities." "The experts were not warned about criminal liability for knowingly giving false evidence. They were asked a series of legal questions, the answers to which are solely in the competence of the court, in particular questions about whether the material contained any calls for extremist activities to be carried out and whether the actions of the participants of the video clips can be considered an instance of hooliganism motivated by political or other hatred," reads Ekaterina Samutsevich's appeal to the Moscow City Court. "In addition, the document shows that 4 video clips on a DVD labelled "Pussy Riot" were submitted for the study, and there is no indication that the DVD was sealed in an envelope, which means that there are no grounds to believe that the video clips submitted to the study were the ones posted on the LiveJournal blog and which were examined in accordance with the act of examining the website." Ekaterina Samutsevich also points out that other case materials related to the expert appraisal of the video clips were not presented to the court: these were the conclusions of a comprehensive psycholinguistic study and a further study which demonstrated that the videos of the punk prayer did not contain any calls for extremist activities. Back in the Zamoskvorechye District Court in Moscow, in reply to a question by Judge Marina Musimovich, Ekaterina Samutsevich explained in detail why the decision of the court on the video affected her rights. She stated that the Khamovnichesky District Court in Moscow had found her guilty of hooliganism for participating in a protest by the rock group Pussy Riot on 21 February 2012 in the Christ the Saviour Cathedral, that the court verdict had identified her as one of the participants of the punk prayer Mother of God, Virgin Mary, Drive Putin Away! and that the video of the punk prayer forms part of the evidence of the criminal case. Samutsevich also said that the decision of the Zamoskvorechye District Court could make a difference to the supervisory procedure of her appeal of the verdict. At that point judge Musimovich disagreed with Samutsevich's arguments and the court later declared the video of the Pussy Riot punk prayer to be extremist material. |
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