Transcript:
Your Honor! I will say right away that after my stroke, it is difficult for me to formulate my thoughts, so my loved ones helped me to express in this final statement everything I think and feel.
The first thing I want to say: it pains me to see what is happening. I remember what happened before 2017. Experts, who had neither the appropriate education nor qualifications, at someone's bidding, prepared conclusions because of which the publications of Jehovah's Witnesses were added to the list of extremist materials. Then, when apparently the necessary number had been reached, local organizations were recognized as extremist. Eventually, the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses was also liquidated. This was carried out methodically and gradually. And now it has come down simply to proving that a person remains one of Jehovah's Witnesses after 2017, that he has not renounced his faith, his principles. And although the Supreme Court emphasized that, by law, Jehovah's Witnesses are not banned and have the right to practice their religion in Russia, it seems that courts in this country issue decisions not according to law, but at someone's will.
I am 80 years old, and it pains me to see good people sitting next to me in the dock, whose lives are in full swing, but have already been punished for 3 years simply for their views; they are forced to explain obvious things to others just because of someone's will. There is not a single victim, not a single one who could reproach them, who could say that they wished evil, threatened, or did something else to cause harm to others. They simply remained themselves when the wind changed.
It pains me to see how good people, representing the executive and judicial authorities, are forced to act according to someone's will and not strictly by law. It pains me that, in my old age, I have already been labeled an extremist even before the verdict, before the court's decision, preemptively declared guilty. But I like …