Text version
0:01
Everything is so absurd that I don't even know...
0:05
where to begin. Usually, this is how it works:
0:07
you take a court ruling,
0:10
look for some legal violations in it, and
0:12
prepare to point them out during the hearing
0:14
on the appeal. But here, all of this
0:19
is one enormous violation of the law.
0:21
A demonstrative violation of the law, Your
0:24
Honor, and throughout this court hearing the whole scheme
0:26
— if you read it — would make you laugh out loud across
0:29
the entire Moscow Regional Court, because
0:31
it is the funniest document in the world. For
0:35
someone who has
0:38
any legal education at all, what
0:40
happened is simply impossible. Your Honor,
0:44
respected court, and respected participants in the proceedings,
0:46
you know,
0:47
for a long time now, together with our judicial system,
0:50
we have been walking down
0:52
the staircase of the degradation of the judicial system.
0:56
Of course, it turns out that a huge number of laws
1:02
simply do not apply to me. Well,
1:04
I understand that this opens up almost mystical
1:07
new horizons for me when I am sitting in
1:09
a cell, in a detention cell, and people come to me
1:13
and say:
1:14
"Come on, you're being taken to a meeting with your lawyers, I suppose."
1:21
The entire federation seems prepared
1:38
for this. Maybe that's because
1:45
right now, behind the scenes, people are deciding
1:50
what kind of spectacle to stage.
1:54
Did they decide to play a joke on you? You've already spent five months...
1:56
I thought: in your country, is everything really considered normal and legal?
1:59
Because it is simply impossible that
2:01
a police station could, based on some notice,
2:02
do this just like that. It's simply impossible, Your Honor.
2:06
This whole circus ended with me
2:09
being handed a piece of paper
2:13
stating that the Simonovsky District Court (in Moscow) had ruled
2:16
with regard to me.
2:18
That is, the Simonovsky Court,
2:21
when it made that decision in my case,
2:24
already knew that I might be here. I
2:27
have no doubt that they decided to do this
2:33
in advance, and they were not even embarrassed by it.
2:39
They did not even bother to hide it; later, don't try to
2:42
explain it away. The judge himself needed time
2:44
to write a letter exceeding
2:46
and
2:47
they were not even embarrassed — they simply handed it over
2:50
for signature.
2:51
This is point number one. Well, it is simply something
2:57
astonishing. Please tell me, Your Honor,
2:59
doesn't it bother you even a little,
3:01
even just a tiny bit,
3:02
that we are in fact considering, on the merits,
3:05
the issue of replacing my
3:08
suspended sentence with a real prison term? This is
3:10
impossible. But no, they are not
3:12
considering it on the merits, even though right now
3:16
I have simply been detained because the entire
3:18
process is being discussed here, here
3:22
in plain sight, in front of everyone,
3:24
and no one seems to understand
3:28
why I am here, what my status is.
3:30
I was detained — but as a detainee, how
3:33
can I even be here at all? This is a very
3:36
strange thing. You can do this for a month, and
3:39
they have not even arrested me — they detained me.
3:42
Why does this happen? Why is this being done?
3:45
Because in the documents on the basis of which
3:48
I was detained at Sheremetyevo Airport
3:50
(Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport),
3:51
it says in black and white that the preventive
3:55
measure
3:57
is absent. If there is no preventive measure,
4:00
then why, over the last several
4:03
days, has the phrase I have heard most often been:
4:06
"Keep your hands behind your back"?
4:08
If there is no preventive measure
4:11
in place, then why am I sitting here?
4:12
This, this is simply, simply astonishing.
4:17
The court ruling contains a set of articles under
4:20
which, supposedly, I should be held for 30
4:23
days.
4:23
Not one of those articles applies to me.
4:26
All of them simply do not
4:28
apply to me. If you now take
4:31
the Criminal Procedure Code
4:32
you will see that they refer to
4:34
circumstances that have nothing to do with me.
4:36
And yet some judge decided that
4:45
Article 344 — or whatever it was — could simply be taken and applied.
4:48
By the way, by the way, it also has nothing to do with me. Upon
4:50
my return, I correctly pointed out
4:53
to Mikhail's lawyers
4:55
that this cannot just appear out of nowhere, right?
4:58
This whole farce is happening now because
5:01
my lawyers and I filed an appeal
5:04
and a court hearing was scheduled,
5:07
and here we are, sitting here together.
5:08
And if you ask how this happened in
5:11
the Khimki Court (a court in the Moscow Region),
5:12
who the senior judge was, who scheduled the hearing, and
5:14
what the answers are —
5:16
who changed the hearing — there are no answers. But
5:18
this is impossible. The Khimki Court
5:20
might as well put on its uniform
5:23
and admit it is ready
5:24
to arrest, to arrest you then
5:27
just arbitrarily arrest people
5:30
if they possess the astonishing
5:32
ability to arrive at a place and
5:34
without any scheduled court hearing
5:36
put whoever they want on trial.
5:39
So there is also an answer there as to why
5:44
all of this is being done this way: because that
5:47
was the goal. Not just lawlessness —
5:50
lawlessness is something Russia is used to — this is
5:54
demonstrative lawlessness, intended
5:57
to intimidate both me and everyone else.
5:59
This is demonstrative lawlessness being carried out
6:02
by our courts, because in essence
6:04
they are simply obedient slaves here,
6:06
serving the people who have been stealing from our
6:08
country and ruining it for 20 years. I did not want
6:11
to say this only for people like me — not only
6:14
for me personally, but for a huge number of people.
6:16
because they simply want to
6:18
to put on another demonstration together
6:25
we’ll shut everyone down; you won’t be able to discuss it in
6:30
the police station; they will drag you there, not
6:32
to pray, but demonstratively, in order to
6:35
confuse everyone, in order once again
6:36
to explain
6:37
we are the masters of this country. So I want
6:41
to conclude my speech, my views
6:44
regarding this appeal
6:45
by saying that I believe, I am convinced, and that
6:50
they are not the masters of our country
6:54
they will be, for an enormous
6:56
number of people—tens of millions of people
6:58
agree with me, and we will never
7:01
allow or permit it so that you
7:03
would seize and effectively steal our country
7:05
even now, the decision is on your side; you have
7:08
the opportunity to set things right, not personality
7:17
thank you very much. He asks for a few
7:20
Kot Mikhailov, and I listened to the speech
7:22
of the winner and was astonished, fortunately
7:24
the essential task of the prosecutor’s office is
7:26
oversight of legality, and it is precisely
7:29
the prosecutor’s office that has become the body in Russia
7:31
that serves as the vehicle for
7:33
once again, demonstrative lawlessness and
7:36
Your Honor, the dirtiest thing now in that
7:41
part of our country, and wherever there is internet access
7:43
there, unlike me, I know quite well
7:45
our film is quite popular, and so I urged
7:50
everyone as well to watch our small
7:51
investigation called Chaika from which
7:53
many will understand why
7:56
the prosecutor’s office at present
7:58
is simply, in effect,
8:00
an organized criminal group that
8:03
serves its own interests
8:11
in my closing statement, I would first like
8:17
to express support for those people who
8:19
right now are not afraid. I want
8:31
to express enormous support to those of us who
8:33
take to the streets, because only they
8:36
are in fact that last
8:40
last barrier, so to speak, standing against
8:43
our country’s degradation and
8:49
ultimately being simply stolen. They are all, in fact,
8:53
the defenders of our country and patriots
8:56
of our country. Everything that is happening
9:00
in places like the Simonovsky Court and in all
9:03
the other courts, and in police vans
9:06
is demonstrative lawlessness aimed at intimidation
9:09
once again I want to say: you will not succeed
9:12
in fact, we are the majority, and tens of
9:19
millions cannot be intimidated, despite the fact that
9:22
of course, many are now somewhere
9:27
under arrest or facing deprivation, but I believe that
9:30
now more and more people
9:32
understand that in our country, the law is on
9:36
our side, the truth is on our side, and we are the majority
9:39
and we will not allow a handful of scoundrels
9:42
to impose their rules on our country
9:45
thank you