“I don’t need anyone’s pity”

Today [14 December] we received a letter from DMITRIEV (writes Natalya Dyomina). He says he’s reading the case materials. There are 20 volumes, and he gets through 1½ to 3 of them a day.

“I still have to read about a third of the case materials. Hopefully, I’ll be able to finish them all next week. … The whole day is spent reading and by the evening I can’t write a sentence without using obscenities!” Things are fine with him, he says: his health is no worse than might be expected from someone his age.

DMITRIEV wants information about President Putin’s meeting [on 10 December] with the Council for Human Rights: he’s received a very limited report. I’ll ask someone to print out the minutes of a number of important contributions and post them to him.

Yury Alexeyevich has also requested supporters to use a different photo of him on their placards. “It makes me look very forlorn”, and he doesn’t like it.

IS THIS THE ONE …

(One-woman picket outside the Presidential Administration building in Moscow)

“We don’t need your pity”, he writes, recalling the song Vysotsky wrote to words by Gudzenko: “I’m not the victim of some predator, I’m not a prisoner of war — I’m surrounded on all sides but have not given up the fight.”