MOSCOW â€" Russian authorities announced on Thursday that bodyguards have been assigned to protect the judge presiding over the trial of three members of the all-female protest band Pussy Riot, after unspecified threats. The authorities did not describe the threats to the judge, Marina Syrova, who is expected to announce a verdict and possible jail terms for the women on Friday.
The women have been in jail since March, shortly after the band staged an audacious protest against Russian leader Vladimir Putin inside Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The group posted a recording of that performance on YouTube, showing five women wearing brightly colored balaclavas, staging an impromptu performance before the alter of the cathedral, punctuated with three cries of, “Holy Mother, send Putin packing!â€
The reported threats against the judge underlined the growing prominence of the case, which has attracted international attention, in part because a host of musicians - from Franz Ferdinand to Madonna to Peaches - have denounced the trial as an unwarranted assault on freedom of speech and expression.
Close observers of the Russian political and legal system say that despite the international pressure, there is little chance that the three women - Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Maria Alyokhina, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30 - will walk free on Friday. “Imagine some 500 people and journalists are gathered near the courthouse and then they walk out triumphantly like victors,†said Zoya Svetova, a reporter who covers the courts for The New Times, an independent Moscow weekly. “That would b e impossible for Putin's system.â€
As The New Times reports, Paul McCartney added his name on Thursday to the list of Pussy Riot supporters, publishing a letter to the three women on his Web site. “Dear Nadya, Katya & Masha,†the former Beatle wrote. His letter continued:
I'm writing to show my support for you at this difficult time. I would like you to know that I very much hope the Russian authorities would support the principle of free speech for all their citizens and not feel that they have to punish you for your protest. Many people in the civilized world are allowed to voice their opinions and as long as they do not hurt anyone in doing so I believe this is the best way forward for all societies. I hope you can stay strong and believe that I and many others like me who believe in free speech will do everything in our power to support you and the idea of artistic freedom.
While there is no sign that the Russian president is a fan of the American riot grrrl movement that inspired the members of Pussy Riot, Mr. Putin is known to be a lover of rock music from an earlier era. In 2009, his spokesman wrote to The Times of London to deny a report that Mr. Putin had imported an Abba tribute band for a command performance. In the letter, the spokesman wrote: “Mr. Putin is more of a Beatles fan than an Abba one.†A year earlier, Mr. Putin had expressed his admiration for the Beatles in an interview with Andrew Lloyd Webber. “Several generations of Russians were brought up on and had a special feeling for The Beatles,†the Russian leader told the composer. “Some years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Paul McCartney. Their songs are still at the summit.â€
Regular readers of The Lede might recall that Mr. Putin gave another clue to his musical tastes in late 2009, when he took to the stage during a benefit concert for children with cancer in St. Petersburg to sing “Blueberry Hill.â€
It is not surprising that many consider the Pussy Riot verdict a foregone conclusion. The Moscow city court system had only a 0.7 percent acquittal rate in criminal trials in 2011, handing down not-guilty verdicts in just 239 of the 35,626 cases tried in court that year. Instead, most are waiting to see whether the judge will grant a prosecutor's request to deliver sentences of three years in a prison colony.
The authorities have sent mixed signals. Mr. Putin set the odds for a spin when he told journalists this month in London that the young women should “not be judged too harshly.†In the same interview, however, he said that there was nothing good about their stunt in the church and that the decision was up to the court. Some supporters of the women interpreted the president's remarks as pa rt of a ruse to make the prosecution seem independent of political considerations.
Russians, meanwhile, are divided over the trial. While a mere 5 percent of respondents polled last month by the Levada Center said that the women should be let off without punishment, only 15 percent supported a jail term of more than two years. Most, called for a lighter punishment, and 29 percent said the women should be sentenced to community service.
Anastasia Volochkova, a former prima ballerina in the Bolshoi Ballet known for her sharp, often unprintable comments, wrote on her blog that the trial was damaging the Church's public image. “The Church should call on them to publicly repent, and let them fight for truth, cleaning public toilets until they shine!!!â€
She was not the only one to suggest an unorthodox punishment. As our colleague David Herszenhorn reported, the case has driven a wedge between members of the Russian Orthodox Church as well.
The Rev. Ale ksandr L. Ptitsyn, of Moscow's Church of the Exultation of the Cross, told The Times this month that the women would probably have been given “a slap†on the behind if they had performed in his Church without stirring up huge publicity, but because they made efforts to publicly offend the church he said a two-year suspended sentence was more appropriate.
In his defense of the women in March, the protest leader Aleksei Navalny, a Christian, called on the Russian Orthodox Church to “display mercy and forgive the silly girls, ask for their immediate release before trial, and hold an educative conversation with them when they are released.â€
Under Russian law, the charges against the women - hooliganism motivated by religious hatred - carry a maximum penalty of seven years in jail. Ms. Svetova, the New Times reporter, said that the requested three-year sentence was more likely â€" but that anything was possible. The judge “could give four years â€" it has ha ppened before. But my prognosis is that it will be less,†she said.
The trial has also raised concerns about the growing influence of the Russian Orthodox Church on the state. The Russian news site Gazeta.ru reports on Thursday that the city of Omsk “banned a Zombie Walk at the request of local diocese, Interfax reports, citing walk organizer Mikhail Yakovlev.†Mr. Yakovelev connected the banned walk to the prosecution of the musicians, noting: “both in the Pussy Riot case and in ours we see that the church is interfering not only with the matters of state, but also in criminal cases and cultural issues.â€
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former head of Yukos Oil and once Russia's richest man, who was sentenced to nine years in prison on tax charges in 2005 and then had his prison sentence extended to 2017, offered little in the way of a prediction. In an open letter to the three women on trial, he wrote: “I want to hope that your prison experience will end s oon.â€
In his statement, Mr. Khodorkovsky also noted that the women are being prosecuted in the same courtroom, and seated behind the same glass enclosure, used in his trial.
It is painful to watch what is taking place in the Khamovnichesky Court of the city of Moscow, where Masha, Nadya, and Katya are on trial. The word “trial†is applicable here only in the sense in which it was used by the Inquisitors of the Middle Ages.
I know this aquarium in courtroom number 7 well â€" they made it especially for me and Platon, “just for usâ€, after the ECHR had declared that keeping defendants behind bars is degrading and violates the Convention on Human Rights.
