The criminal case against three members of the Russian female punk band Pussy Riot is “resonant” because it has to do with personal rights and freedoms, but it is up to a court to decide on their fate, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has said.

His first public comments on the case, in which the three young women face up to seven years in jail for performing a controversial “punk prayer” in Moscow’s main cathedral in February, came in an interview with the Times newspaper published on Monday.

Public reaction to the case – which has sparked heated public debates in Russia and abroad – should be “calm” as no verdict has yet been made, Medvedev told the Times on July 28, two days before the beginning of public court hearings into the case on Monday.

“There are certainly different positions. In some countries responsibility for such actions would be much stricter, not to say that in some political conditions such actions in a church – regardless of confession – could have very gloomy consequences for those responsible,” Medvedev said.

“This case is resonant because it has to do with our understanding of personal rights and freedoms. But I believe there will always be differences in perceiving what is allowed and what is not allowed from the moral point of view and where is the line between acts of morality and actions that should be criminally prosecuted,” he added.

The court should decide whether the materials collected by investigators constitute “corpus delicti” (body of crime) or not, he said.

“But that some of those young women are now in jail and that this is already quite a serious test for them and their families – I certainly understand this,” he added.

Court hearings into the case of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 23, Maria Alyokhina, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29, began earlier on Monday, almost five months after they were arrested and put in pre-trial custody on criminal charges of hooliganism.

They were detained after four masked members of Pussy Riot performed a song in Moscow’s landmark Cathedral of Christ the Savior in late February against what they said was church support for Vladimir Putin’s presidential election campaign.

The song, entitled “Holy S**t,” featured the lyrics “Virgin Mary, drive Putin out!” and came amid unprecedented demonstrations against the twelve-year rule of the former KGB officer. The suspects admit being part of the Pussy Riot group, but say they did not take part in the cathedral protest. Putin called the protest “unpleasant.”

Their criminal prosecution has sparked heated debates in Russia between those who support strict punishment for what they believe was “desecration” of a holy Orthodox site, those who think the Pussy Riot members should be freed as they committed no crime, and others who believe the punishment should be limited to administrative fines.

The case has also triggered strong criticism from Russian and Western human rights groups. Amnesty International has declared the arrested women “prisoners of conscience.”

Prosecutors say the group “insulted in a sacrilegious manner the centuries-old foundations of the Russian Orthodox Church” and performed a “blasphemous” song in the cathedral.

On Monday, the group members called their “punk prayer” an “ethical mistake,” but pleaded not guilty to charges of hooliganism. They said they expected their political performance to be viewed as ironic.