Sitting with arms crossed, hunched on the bench in her glass cage, Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29, is the quietest of the three women, but her statements are often the most complicated.

She has called particular attention to the plight of LGBT people in Russia, where official discrimination against so-called "sexual minorities" is growing.

A computer programmer, Samutsevich's heart lies in art. She was a member of the first graduating class of Moscow's Rodchenko School of Photography and Multimedia, a cutting-edge contemporary art school. Her former professor, Alexey Shulgin, testified in court that "her final project was one of the best in our school's history".

Samutsevich's 73-year-old father, Stanislav, has attended every court session and described how the women gathered at the home he shared with his daughter to prepare their performances and outfits.

Samutsevich's opening statement, read by her lawyer, included a stark warning: "Our criminal case is political censorship from the side of the authorities, the start of a campaign of authoritarian, repressive measures aimed at lowering the level of political activism and provoking a feeling of fear among citizens who hold opposition views."