MOSCOW (Reuters) - Three women who protested against Vladimir Putin in a "punk prayer" on the altar of Russia's main cathedral went on trial on Monday in a case seen as a test of the longtime leader's treatment of dissent during a new presidential term.
The women from the band 'Pussy Riot' face up to seven years in prison for an unsanctioned performance in February in which they entered Moscow's Christ the Saviour Cathedral, ascended the altar and called on the Virgin Mary to "throw Putin out!"
Maria Alyokhina, 24, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29, were brought to Moscow's Khamovniki court for Russia's highest-profile trial since former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was convicted in 2010, for a second time, in the same courtroom where the Pussy Riot trial began.
Supporters chanted "Girls, we're with you!" and "Victory!" as the women, each handcuffed by the wrist to a female officer, were led from a white and blue police van into the courthouse through a side entrance. Streets around the court, on a high Moscow River embankment, were closed.
They were led into a metal and clear-plastic courtroom cage, where they milled and spoke with lawyers as preparations began. Tolokonnikova, in a blue chequered shirt, lowered her head to speak through a small opening in the enclosure. Two pairs of handcuffs hung at the ready just beside her face.
"We did not want to offend anybody," Tolokonnikova said, speaking to a defence lawyer who stood outside the enclosure. "We admit our political guilt, but not legal guilt."
The stunt was designed to highlight the close relationship between the dominant Russian Orthodox Church and former KGB officer Putin, then prime minister, whose campaign to return to the presidency in a March election was backed clearly, if informally, by the leader of the church, Patriarch Kirill.
The protest offended many believers and enraged Kirill. The church, which has enjoyed a big revival since the demise of the officially atheist Communist Soviet Union in 1991 and is seeking more influence on secular life, cast the performance as part of a sinister campaign by "anti-Russian forces".
ANGER OVER CLOSE CHURCH-STATE TIES
The women are charged with hooliganism motivated by religious hatred or hostility.
But in opening statements read by a defence lawyer, who sometimes struggled with the handwritten texts, they said they were protesting against Kirill's political support for Putin and had no animosity toward the church or the faithful.
"I have never had such feelings toward anyone in the world," Tolokonnikova said in her statement. "We are not enemies of Christians ... our motives are exclusively political."
"We only want Russia to change for the better," she said.
Alyokhina's statement said: "I thought the church loved all its children, but it seems the church loves only those children who love Putin."
The women looked thinner and paler than they did when they were jailed following the performance in late February, shortly before Putin, in power as president from 2000-2008 and then as prime minister, won a six-year presidential term on March 4.
"She looks like she has been on a long hunger strike," Stanislav Samutsevich said of his daughter. "Her cheeks are hollow ? I've never seen her in such a state. I think this is like an inquisition, like mockery."
A reporter on state-run Rossiya-24 television presented a different picture, focusing on occasional smiles and chuckles and an overall air of self-assuredness among the women, who whispered to each other as a prosecutor read the charges.
"Look at their faces; they are laughing and joking," the reporter said on the news, adding that a viewer might think they were "continuing the action" they carried out at the cathedral.
Prosecutors asked for the trial, which was streamed live on the Internet, to be closed to the public and the media, saying a "rift in society" and emotions over the case put the defendants and other participants at risk.
A group of conservative Russian writers called on Monday for tough punishment. But Kremlin opponents, rights activists and supporters of the defendants say the charges are politically motivated.
"This has nothing to do with the law, it is a political reprisal," said opposition lawmaker Gennady Gudkov. "(The prosecution of) Pussy Riot is of course an unprecedented case of stupidity and brutality on the part of the authorities."
PROTEST MOVEMENT
The performance, a protest against the church's support for Putin, was part of a lively protest movement that at its peak saw 100,000 people turn out for rallies in Moscow, some of the largest in Russia since the Soviet Union's demise.
The plight of the three women, who have been held in a courtroom cage during pre-trial hearings, has also drawn attention in the West, where governments are closely watching how Putin will handle dissent.
Rights groups and musicians such as Sting and the Red Hot Chili Peppers have expressed concern about the trial, reflecting doubts that Putin - who could serve until 2024 if re-elected in six years - will become more tolerant.
In her opening statement, read out by defence lawyer Violetta Volkova, Samutsevich said she saw the prosecution as "the start of a campaign of authoritarian, repressive measures aimed to ... spread fear among politically active citizens."
The trial comes as Putin, 59, is trying to forestall potential challenges and rein in his opponents, who hope to reignite the street protest movement this autumn.
On Monday, Putin signed a law enacting stricter punishment for defamation. That follows recent laws tightening controls on foreign-funded civil rights groups and sharply raising fines for violations of public order at street rallies.
Opposition leaders including anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny and socialite Ksenia Sobchak have had their homes searched and faced repeated rounds of questioning over violence at a protest on the eve of Putin's inauguration on May 7.
Navalny was due to appear before investigators in a separate case on Monday, and lawyers, who said they were told he would be charged with a crime punishable by up to five years in prison.
Amnesty International has called for the release of the Pussy Riot members, two of whom have young children, saying the charges are not a "justifiable response to the peaceful - if, to many, offensive - expression of their political beliefs."
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev dismissed criticism of the case in remarks published on Monday, saying the trial was a "serious ordeal" for the defendants and their families but that "one should be calm about it" and await the outcome.
"It seems to me that there will always be different perceptions about what is acceptable and not acceptable from a moral point of view and where moral misbehaviour becomes a criminal action," he told the Times of London in an interview.
"Whether that is the case here is up to the court to decide," he said, according to a Russian government transcript.
Few Russians believe the country's courts are independent, however, and Medvedev acknowledged during his 2008-2012 presidential term that they were subject to political influence and corruption.
"The court's decision will depend not on the law but on what the Kremlin wants," said Lyudmila Alexeyeva, a Soviet-era dissident and veteran human rights activist who heads the Moscow Helsinki Group.
(Additional reporting by astassia Astrasheuskaya, Writing by Steve Gutterman, Editing by Timothy Heritage and Anna Willard)
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