Yulia Botukh and Varya Mikhaylova, May 7, 2018. Photo by Ms. Mikhaylova. Courtesy of her Facebook page
Yulia Botukh
VK
September 11, 2018
Twelve hours of court hearings.
Today, the heroic, fearless Varya [Mikhaylova] and I defended the interests of people detained yesterday [at the anti-pension reform rally in Petersburg] in the Primorsky District Court.
I need to get it off my chest.
The judges are such masters of their craft they can hear four cases simultaneously without even feigning that they are observing procedural niceties. They are capable of saying straight to your face that the fewer appeals you file, the better things will go for you.
Is this a way of teaching us to silently put up with every perversion of justice in general and human rights in particular? They could at least put it indirectly, not head on, when they sentence people represented by a social defender to seven days in jail, while sending people with no legal representation to jail for three days. One judge sentences everyone to pay fines, another judge sentences everyone to X number of days in jail, while a third judge divides up the fines and jail time according to gender.
Then there are the police officers who escort the detainees. There are ones who behave properly and humanely. Then there are ones who can say things like, “I decide when they go to the toilet!” or “Why do you have to go one by one? Put a group together!” or “Why the mob? Do you have hold each other’s wee-wees?” or “No, I’m not taking you now. I just arrived. Let me rest. I’m stressed out!” or “Are you fucking kidding?”
I realize all these means of humiliation are meant to compensate for the individual’s inability to manage these aspects of his life on his or her own and that, maybe, it has become so ingrained these things are said automatically, but it doesn’t make it any smoother. You have to argue with certain police officers over taking detainees to the bathroom.
There was the charming female officer who refused to give me her name. It was like at school. She concealed her personal information from me, as recorded in a receipt, by covering it with a piece of paper.
And you have already read the media reports of officers taking food meant for the detainees and eating it themselves.
The detainees are all super cool girls, women, guys, and men. They thank me and hug me, although I realize that, basically, there is little I can do to help them. I can do my best, but the outcome is totally unpredictable. Probably, it helps more emotionally that you are not alone, that someone can explain to you what happens next and tell what things are like in the temporary detention facility on Zakharyevskaya Street. I was glad that no one lost their optimism, sense of humor or ability to make fun of what was happening. It matters.
Some of the detainees said they now had a different perspective on the justice system and protest rallies. Many of them told mew that at the police precincts they were asked how much they had been paid for going to the protest rally. A thousand rubles? Three thousand?
What planet do cops come from?
My defendants were fined ten thousand rubles [approx. 125 euros] or jailed for as many as seven days.
If you like surprise, attend the court hearings held after protest rallies. You won’t be disappointed.
Thanks to the ferocious Varya Mihaylova for Ms. Botuk’s text, as reposted on her own VK page, and the heads-up. Translated by the Russian Reader
Award-winning Ukrainian filmmaker and political prisoner Oleg Sentsov has been on hunger strike for 125 days in the Polar Bear Maximum Security Prison in the far north of Russia. His only demand throughout the strike has been that the Russian authorities release sixty-four other Ukrainian political prisoners, most of them, like Mr. Sentsov, from Crimea, which was illegally occupied by Russia in 2014.
The Russian Reader 