We succeeded in getting the conviction overturned
Text version
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[music]
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Hi, I’ve just come back from
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the Supreme Court, where they were effectively
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considering whether to restore
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my legal right to take part in
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elections, and you’ve probably already seen in the news
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that yes, our victory in the European
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Court simply forced the Presidium of the
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Supreme Court—and this is the very top
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of the judicial pyramid; there is no
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higher judicial authority in Russia—to
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overturn all those unlawful and politically
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motivated verdicts that
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were handed down over all these years in the Kirovles case.
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As of this moment, I am no longer
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convicted under a serious criminal charge and once again have the
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right to run in elections. Nevertheless,
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I can’t say that I am satisfied with the
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ruling, because in essence the Supreme Court
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should have dismissed this case altogether
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for lack of any crime having been committed, and
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only such a decision would have been
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truly lawful. What does this mean
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in practice? It means that the Kremlin, which in fact
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made this decision, has simply
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kept for itself, so to speak, the option to
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switch off this electoral
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right again at any moment.
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They can convict me again, and I’ll have to spend days and weeks on it,
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spend a lot of money on it, fly there,
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bring lawyers with me—and all this considering
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that my previous expenses were never
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reimbursed, despite the fact that
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the European Court explicitly ordered Russia
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to pay all my legal costs. But today,
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one way or another, we won in the highest
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court in the land. What do I want to say
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about this? First of all, of course, nobody
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ever promised an easy life. I understood perfectly well
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that whatever decision they handed down,
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it still would not be 100% in my
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favor, and the Kremlin would always make that
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decision a sly one, designed to
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make my work as difficult as possible in
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the future. But despite any obstacles, I
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will continue to do whatever I can to
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fight this criminal regime in any
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form available to me.
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Second, I would like to thank those
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who supported me all these years, who did not believe
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the fabricated charges, and who understood that
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sooner or later all of this would be overturned,
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just as eventually all the other
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unlawful court decisions
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issued against me, against my
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colleagues, against my loved ones, against
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my brother, who is now sitting in
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prison as a hostage simply because
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he is my brother, and against everyone else
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who is imprisoned under unlawful political
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sentences. Third, I want once again
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to apologize to Pyotr Ofitserov’s family
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and to him personally for the fact that all these years
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he has been dragged through the courts simply because
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he is an acquaintance of mine, and now they will continue
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hauling him back to these courts all over again. The
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man has five children; he certainly has
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better things to do than to endlessly
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attend these court hearings. And finally, once again,
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neither I nor the people who work with
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me will give up, regardless of
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how many unlawful and unjust
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decisions are handed down against us.
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We will keep fighting for what is ours, and the truth is on
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our side. And I call on you to do the same.
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This is our country, and we must not hand it over
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to corrupt judges, gangster prosecutors, and
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the thieves now entrenched in the Kremlin.
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Subscribe to our channel. Here
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we tell the truth.