Video and Transcript, 24.02.2014

Sergei Mitrokhin: We have already expressed our attitude to the legitimacy of the verdict on the Bolotnaya Rally case. The sentence is based on fabricated evidence of the investogators.

I have been in the court at one of the trials, and I followed the trial closely. It is absolutely obvious that the sentences [to the defendenats] are not based on law or justice. They are politically biased.

Another manifestation of unlawfulness was when people were detained by Zamoskvoretsky City Court [in Moscow], because any citizen has to right to an open and transparent justice, including the right to visit hearings of the court.

Question: How would you assess such actions of the police, as, for example, I have just seen that there stood a young man holding a placard, and he did not shout anything, and the police quite violently took him by the arms and got him to the police van.

Sergei Mitrokhin: I was not a really very violent detention, compared to what we have seen. The police simply seizes people from the crowd at random, and most often they take people who do not shout anything and just stand there silently and peacefully. Policemen come up to them and take them to the police vans. The police used exactly the same tactics by Zamoskvoretsky City Court [when people gathered in the court yard to wait for the verdict and support the prisoners]. Why do they do it? I think that they are not aiming at scaring people already, I guess they are compiling a data base on the participants of protest actions so that to be able to “work” with this base, like they “worked” with the data base on the Bolotnaya rally, when they simply appointed alleged “criminals” by simply choosing some of the protestors at random [from the data base].

Question: What do you think all those dissenting with the toughening regime should do?

Sergei Mitrokhin: It is very important now to go on with peaceful protests. All the forms of a peaceful protest lying within the framework of the law must be developed. It is the only possible way towards changing of the regime.

I guess, that they are taking people at random to police vans, mostly people who just stand there peacefully and even do not shout anything, because they are compiling data bases on the participants of protest actions… The only way is to go on with peaceful lawful protests that will allow to change the present regime…