Pussy Riot's woes expose Russian judicial system

The three members of punk band Pussy Riot have complained of inhumane treatment during their trial, receiving little or no food during 10-hour days in court and preparing their defence only at night. But the way the young women have been treated -- described eloquently in the courtroom by the women and their lawyers -- is nothing unusual in the Russian prison and court systems, experts told AFP. Defence lawyer Violetta Volkova said this month she would complain to the European Court of Human Rights over the women's "torture" as they face three years in prison for their "punk prayer" against Vladimir Putin in Moscow's main church. "They have been deprived of sleep. They have not been properly fed, they have been humiliated," she said. The women's lawyers submitted three petitions complaining that daily hearings were lasting up to 12 hours per day, giving them no time to meet their clients. Judge Marina Syrova rejected them all, said defence lawyer Mark Feygin. Lawyers and experts said the women's treatment in the trial, which has caused an outcry in Russia and internationally, was common practice in other high-profile cases including that of ex-Yukos oil chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The only difference about the Pussy Riot trial was that it got publicity, argued Ella Paneyakh of the Institute for the Rule of Law within the European University at Saint Petersburg. "What is happening in front of our eyes (with Pussy Riot) happens to all people without exception who are brought to court from pre-trial detention centres," she wrote in an opinion piece in liberal business daily Vedomosti. Usually these abuses "happen on the quiet without provoking any feelings of compassion in the public," she said. Missing meals, long transfers in cramped police trucks between detention centre and court and a lack of privacy to prepare a defence with a lawyer are standard practice in Russia, where around 136,000 people entered pre-trial detention in 2011, said Paneyakh. The violations are aimed at putting pressure on those on trial so that they confess their guilt and enter into a plea bargain, she said. "The system benefits a lot from this. This means that the investigators and the prosecutors are guaranteed to win in court. The judge has significantly less work and a lack of a risk of the verdict being appealed," Paneyakh added. Genrikh Padva, one of Russia's most prominent lawyers with 60 years' experience, said courts did not see it as necessary to consider the comfort of those on trial. "When a trial lasts till late evening, the defendants are not given a hot meal. Sometimes they simply do not have time to eat. And it is forbidden to give them food in the court," said the former chief lawyer for Khodorkovsky. In a statement on the Pussy Riot case, Khodorkovsky spoke of experiencing very similar conditions. In a sinister coincidence, the women are being tried in the same courtroom as he and his former business partner Platon Lebedev were during their second trial for tax evasion. Prisoners can be woken six hours before their hearing begins, Khodorkovsky said, writing of "stewing in your own sweat" in a tiny isolation cell inside the police transport truck that ferries prisoners to courts. During the hearing, prisoners are given only instant noodles or porridge to eat, arriving back at the detention centre too late for dinner, he said. With daily court hearings, they are then woken a few hours later. "I do not know how the girls are able to endure this," he said. "It is not customary to complain about this in the SIZO (detention centre), because for the SIZO this is the usual regime." Last year, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia had violated Khodorkovsky's rights during his arrest and subsequent detention and ordered it to pay him damages of 10,000 euros.