Last year, in protest to Russia's anti-blasphemy law that criminalized playing Pokémon GO in church, vlogger Ruslan Sokolovsky filmed himself catching Pokémons in Yekaterinburg’s Church of All Saints, the site where the last Emperor of Russia Nicholas II and his family were murdered in 1918, and shared the footage on his YouTube channel:

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The 22-year old was then detained for two months for “inciting hatred” and “insulting religious feelings” after posting the video, and later taken to a pre-trial detention center for breaching the terms of his house arrest after the young man had posted a video on the Internet though he had been banned from using the web and mobile communications. Judgement was passed this Thursday and Sokolovsky was found guilty of all charges.

"In accordance with the expert evaluation, the court found blogger Sokolovsky guilty of inciting hatred, violating religious feelings and illegal possession of special technical means - a pen with a video camera," said judge Yekaterina Shoponyak who granted the prosecutors' wish and gave the vlogger a 3.5-year suspended sentence.

Judge Shoponyak pointed out that the 22-year old video blogger was on trial not only for playing the game in the church but also for posting several videos that offended believers. She listed "mockery of the immaculate conception," ''denial of the existence of Jesus and Prophet Muhammad" and "giving an offensive description of Patriarch Kirill," the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.

During the court hearings, Sokolovsky did not deny that he had been the author of these videos but concerning the pen with a camera, he reportedly said that not only was the pen not his, but that it wasn’t a camera at all, but instead just a light bulb.

During the interrogation of eyewitnesses, the blogger apologized to all worshippers who had complained about being offended.

What do you think of this case? Was the verdict fair in finding Sokolovsky guilty who on top of violating the country's anti-blasphemy law, additionally breached the terms of his house arrest? Or is suppressing one's freedom of expression a more serious offense?

SOURCE 1, SOURCE 2

 

[rt141]

Sounds to me like Russia has laws that prohibit you from using technology/cameras in churches for purposes other than preaching.

Of course this is outrageous and dumb. On the other hand, if you know what the law is, idiotic as it might be, you kinda have to respect it or else this happens.

 

[Soulsilve2010]

"denial of the existence of Jesus and Prophet Muhammad",so Islam rules Russia too?Thought it was just Europe and Sweden.Hope the guy isn't murdered over this.I heard someone was killed over a pork sandwich prank once.Oh and you can also go to jail for "violating religious feelings".I have quite a few very rude things to say but won't say them.

 

[sarkwalvein]

so Islam rules Russia too?

Not "rules" but with strong presence.
Has always been the case since centuries.
I find it laugh inducing how people only realize some centuries long status quo as if it was news or something.

 

[Soulsilve2010]

For me this isn't about free speech its about a guy who knew better about doing something really disrespectful and against the law. For some reason the videos are still up... Part of the sentence should have been to take them down. In fact I get the free speech thing but wasn't about free speech or his tactic would have been different. Organize a protest, other legal and perfectly good ways to change the law were available. Does this article talk about that in any way? NO. That right there is pretty telling. its a disrespectful guy. Now me going to request this thread being shut down.

Are..Are you trolling?No one is this wrapped up in their religion.And no the thread won't go away because your mad,GBATemp is not your safespace.

 

[deinonychus71]

Russia please don't give ideas to Mike Pence...
BTW: Some laws are just as stupid in the US, and pretty much everywhere else.

 

[sarkwalvein]

Russia please don't give ideas to Mike Pence...
BTW: Some laws are just as stupid in the US, and pretty much everywhere else.

Singapore laws say hi!

 

[Bladexdsl]

why is chewing gum there 4 times?

 

[sarkwalvein]

why is chewing gum there 4 times?

No idea, buy you're also fined for spitting, singing, feeding pigeons, etc.

 

[FAST6191]

I spoke to someone that lived in Singapore once; apparently they are pretty hot on such things there too.
Still
Chewing gum does result in a fair amount of cleanup, fining for its use in public would seem to be in line with other disruptive activities you might be free to do at home (see also places that might say no being drunk in public). The litter laws there are also quite strict so this could play into that.
Pigeons are considered pests and wild animals. There are laws here about not feeding seagulls ( http://www.eadt.co.uk/polopoly_fs/1.4161282!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_630/image.jpg ), despite them otherwise being fairly well protected. US has a bunch of similar ones for wild animals http://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=19392 , and searching around similar things exist in many countries.
Spitting is an interesting one and may have to contemplate China (of which the vast majority of the population is ethnic Chinese) where spitting, as in straight up hocking a loogie, is/was a popular pastime among those of a certain age.

I think most of those are "you all live in a city less than 1000km squared, and there 5 million of you (making it the third most densely populated state on earth), maybe try keeping it clean and not disrupting things for other people". In this case I am not so big on corporal punishment for vandalism but other than that most of those would not seem to violate a right considered as fundamental in many places as free speech, as was the case with this Russian law.

 

[grossaffe]

I worked with a guy who would be arrested if he went back to Singapore.

 

[Subtle Demise]

Point is you can't mock someone's believe & say it's ok & it's a freedom of speech. He did wrong. It's kinda like for example your taking a shower & some stranger comes breaks into your house finding some digital pokemon sh-t (Which is obviously stupid thing) & says what a strange pokemon you are & makes video of you of being naked & you say it's ok for him to break in my house & make video of me being naked & call me a strange pokemon because it's freedom of speech. Man grow up! I know you wouldn't allowed such thing to happen in your house & if it happens you'll call the police for sure.

Well here in the USA you can go into a church and say "Jesus was a hook-nosed kike!" but it's the church's responsibility to throw you out or press trespassing charges if you don't leave. That's way different than the government saying you can't say the phrase in question.

 

[smile72]

That's nonsense. If your country passed a law saying the internet is now banned would you just stand for it? Where do you draw the line? Or a law saying every sunday at 13:00 everyone has to stand on their hands for half an hour? What he did wasn't wrong at all. It's just against the law. And regardless of it being the law doesn't mean the punishment is just. Punishing someone just because the law says it's what's required doesn't mean its morally justified.

About the internet being banned this is such a huge irony given that we are talking about Russia and Russia has the lovely neighbors China and North Korea. But yeah, I agree with you this law is shit..like so many other Russian laws especially now with their attempts to force Facebook, Google and Youtube to either leave the country or give data about their Russian customers to the government.....I really hope something can be done for this guy.

 

[raulpica]

I'll remind you guys that:
1. Flaming is not okay and will get you banned from a thread, and also receive a warning.
2. Discussing religion is fine, OFFENDING it is not. You don't believe in something, that's cool, but mocking other people's beliefs (e.g.: by saying stuff like "religion sucks / it should be destroyed / caused all the evils in the world") is EXTREMELY rude and against the rules.

Thanks.

 

[AboodXD]

That's why I say, don't get yourself involved with religion stuff!
Everyone has their own opinion, which doesn't mean you can go and criticize other people's beliefs.

 

[smile72]

That's why I say, don't get yourself involved with religion stuff!
Everyone has their own opinion, which doesn't mean you can go and criticize other people's beliefs.

Exactly,even if you don't believe what the other person believes it doesn't matter. There is no need to criticize religion in this instance.

 

[FAST6191]

If criticising is taking what something says and running it through various trials of logic and understandings of the world, as it is when we do it for games, films, books, tools, cars, food... then religion is certainly not protected, and I would have serious opposition to it even being considered for such a thing.

For the sake of maintaining some kind of civil discourse I guess we can say if you are going to make a claim then prepare to back it up. I mean how can religion be the cause of all evils when it could be argued to be a symptom of the underlying human condition, or indeed that of many animals (they want to eat, and to continue eating, some kind of cohesive and shared philosophy, often based around a leader, then helping facilitate that). I also quite dislike seeing people state "you are ? therefore you believe *", it might well be the case but you have to first let someone express that really, or have it a logical conclusion from what they said (I believe every word in this book is true and that forms my philosophy sort of thing). If nothing else it prevents discourse and if your aim is to demonstrate how something might be false a death by a thousand cuts is more effective than a mass assault -- planting the seeds of doubt vs transplanting a whole forest.

Personally I find the idea that someone would willingly surrender their agency to a "higher power" utterly mind boggling, give or take my understanding of developmental psychology and other aspects of psychology, but from what I have experienced you can still get some good done with those which have.

 

[Angely]

Hmmm, interesting.

I don't think it's religion that ruins things, but the people that make bad choices. you can try to use religion as an excuse for making a bad choice, doing something bad, but it's still won't change the fact you did/chose to do something bad. I personally really dislike it when religion is being used as excuse to enforce law/punish people. It especially gets complicated when someone does not belong to the same religious group or is forced to live with peole that force their relgion on them despite not believing the same & yet accepts the religions exisitence.

I think it's stupid/pointless they sent him to jail, since it's the people that'll have to pay then & the state won't earn much from him being in jail. The should've given him a community service sentice or so, eventhough it's kind of childish what he did & this whole trial is childisch in my eyes. So much drama for someone playing a game in a church really I think it's also a bit sad that people believe it's offensive to god etc. (who kows god was having a blast watching him play too, idk).

Also something else I dislike it when people often speak on behalf of a deity/someone else & feel entitled to harm others on behalf on that deity/person too, that is also harmful & bad in my opnion.-.-'

I dont hate religion, but I dislike when it's being forced on you leaving you with no other option, but to rebel if you're feeling oppressed/trapped etc. I was actually raised strict religious & often parents forced me to church & even threatned to throw me out if I didn't go (no church = no home, luckily my parents changed later) & I can say that it's behaviours like this that can cause people that don't believe/don't unserdtand faith feel hate or disrepect towards anyone who believes in a deity etc. I actually think everyone is a believer/ believe in something or else it'd be hard to live in this world. Though it doesn't mean that you should force your believes on others, this is what causes wars etc. In the end people still can't handle the subject of beliefs well without feeling, offended, hurt etc. at some point. There's always something negative that caused another negative reaction, when something like this happens it's sad.

I also think it's people that chose to feel offended sometimes. That's also something to keep in mind. I always try not to get offended, especially when they're trying to offend me i'll just ignore them if possible. Got to use my ability to believe to turn those people nonexistant, right? If they want my attention, they'd have to try diffenrtly then if they don't like being ignored by me. It solved some attempt at bullying/humilation I had to sometimes endure as a kid.

I have to say I don't get the whole anti-blasphemy in law enforce ment either. I think state & religion should be seperated or we'll keep seeing these kind of mess. It'd get blasphemy law if we were in say heaven & there was a real god ruling or so. Leave law enforcement/punishments regarding to deity/holy beings etc. to themselves, that's the only way to prevents these kind of things. I mean what's the point of a human punishing a human for offending a deity...do you still get it?

 

[efflucas]

Wow, Just wow... I don't even know what to say

 

[Subtle Demise]

Bottom line, it should have been a matter between the church and the guy, no government intervention was needed.

 

[SG854]

Religion is one giant mess.

Heres my problem with religion, many religions contradict each other, many claim that they are correct, and not to believe other false religions or Gods because its a sin. With your soul at stake here you have to make a right choice, and pick the right religion so you won't suffer for eternity. With over 4,000 religions, none of them able to prove the existence of God or if their religion is the true correct one, which one do you pick? Why doesn't God/s tell you which is the correct religion? Its all like winning the lottery, its all just guessing games. If your God really loved you why would he leave your life to a gamble and not tell you? Your God/s sounds like a complete asshole treating your life like a game.

Some people say that God/s doesn't tell anyone because no one would believe it. Some people also claim that God/s is all knowing, so wouldn't an all knowing God/s KNOW exactly what to do to get us to believe, if not then he's not all knowing. Maybe he can make it dark outside during the day time, if a God can create a world wide flood, then I'm sure he can do something extraordinary to get people to believe. Some say that God doesn't want to meddle in human affairs and remains hidden for reasons. Does this sound like a smart decision from an all knowing loving God, especially when religious wars breaks out, and suffering happens.

So why even bother with religion? Especially if your just guessing. Every religion is just as valid. Do you really want to research and shuffle through 4,000 religions to find one, or do you pick randomly without researching other religions? Would your choice be taken seriously especially if your just picking randomly and without researching many of the other beliefs? Will you be punished or your soul suffer for not following Gods specific rules? In this case your not allowed to interpret religion how ever you want, you have to interpret how God wants you to interpret it, or else if you do something God doesn't like then your doomed for suffering. Is it the God of Abraham or some other God? For hope of an afterlife? Does guessing religions sound like a good chance of hope to you. For morals from religious stories? Well I get my morals from Mickey Mouse, Humpty Dumpty, Pinocchio, and the 3 little pigs. Pinocchio has good morals on not lying. I get my morals from an imaginary rat. Theres no need for religion from the morals department. If you like getting morals from religion then fine. But to actually believe in the religion, especially if your religion has an all powerful God that is treating your life like a gamble, and is the one dishing out the punishments without telling you the correct one, why even bother with an unloving asshole of a God?

My take from religion is the family and community it brings more so than the actual beliefs. People love interacting with others. But can't that be done without religion. Many people have attended anime, comic, ect, conventions and also many non nerdy events without religion being the main focus, so a family community can be done without religion. Especially if your religion has an F'd up God and its all just guessing games.