I disagree with the indictment.

The indictment says that I committed disorderly conduct motivated by religious hatred and enmity and by the hatred of Orthodox Christians. I fundamentally don't understand this statement. Our performance aimed to attract the attention of the Russian clergy and the rector of Cathedral of the Christ the Savior, patriarch Kirill. We are representatives of our generation, and we are at a loss after his actions and appeals.

Pussy Riot on Trial

Pussy Riot on Trial
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We wanted and want a dialogue. We know that there is no other way to get an audience with any representative of the church authority because of the security, who, ironically, are victims in our case. We wanted to get f[ather] Kirill's attention because we wanted to ask him about his calls to vote for Vladimir Putin [during the presidential election of 4 March 2012]. I am an Orthodox Christian, but I stick to the other political views, and my question is: what should I do?

As a representative of my generation, I also have questions about the relationship of the church and the state to f[ather] Kirill. I sincerely would like to get answers to these questions from f[ather] Kirill, relying on his wisdom. I thought that the Church loved its children, but dual standards turned out to be present here as well: the Church loves only those children who believe in Putin. I never thought that the Russian Orthodox Church was to call for faith in any president; I thought its role was to call for the faith in God.
 
It important for me to understand whether the Church is growing along with the society or it remains a conservative institution. In the search for an answer, I did not expect a repressive and inquisition-like reaction. Therefore, I consider the prosecution claims of our criminal motive unfounded. We did not have such motive. The rehearsal recordings show that we aimed for a minute-and-a-half performance of which we actually performed forty seconds.
 
To say that the forty-second performance undermined the centuries-old foundations is absurd.
 
Further, the prosecution argues that we intentionally bought clothes for this performance. The materials of our case directly refute this point. Tights and dresses are a part of the Pussy Riot image, and the balaclavas, named in the indictment "masks", are not a disguise, but a conceptual element of our image. Pussy Riot does not want to focus attention on girl's appearances, but creates characters who express ideas.
 
We chose the day of our performance purposefully. It was Maslenitsa, the Butter Week, with its tradition of dressing up and dancing. We came to the Cathedral outside of the hours of service or any celebratory activities, which indicates that we did care about the church calendar.
 
The prosecution alleges that we violated the order based on our hatred and enmity of religion and the hatred of the Orthodox Christians. I think this is a fantasy, and I have already explained our motivation above. In no way could I have imagined the scale of the reaction that exists today. It was not me who organized the broadcasts on the federal television channels, where we were labeled as sacrilege-makers and provokers. It remains unclear to me why all this has happened and is still happening. Moreover, I think it's the organizers of such TV programs depreciate the Russian Orthodox tradition when they argue that the three girls could do something to the spiritual foundation of the state, even more so with the God; this is especially true because my friends and I repeatedly tried to make piece between our supporters and those who condemn us. If religious people are offended by the fact that we climbed into the fenced pulpit, treating it like a stage, then for that I apologize. We did it because we did not know the internal church rules.

If our six-month imprisonment was required to explain these rules to us in detailed, then I can confidently say we understood and learned them.

Everything I said above is an ideological question about the indictment presented to me, the very statement of which I consider absurd because I am a citizen of a secular state. All my deeds and misdeeds, I believe, should be viewed in the legal realm. I consider our performance an administrative offense, however it was transferred to the legal realm due to the influence from administrative, political, or religious elites. I ask an independent court to conduct an independent investigation and establish the truth.

Once again, I claim that I never had any religious hatred of the Orthodox Christianity.

Original document:
http://echo.msk.ru/blog/alekhina/914624-echo/

Source:
http://freepussyriot.org/content/translation-mashas-opening-trial-statement-i-disagree-indictment

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