Posted in: Games, Video Games | Tagged: pokemon, pokemon go, Ruslan Sokolovsky, russia

'Pokémon Go' YouTuber Facing Prison Time For Gaming In A Russian Church

Published Mon, 01 May 2017 18:45:20 -0500

Let's be honest here, if you're someone who actually still goes to church and you decide that's the moment you really need to play Pokémon Go, you may need to rethink your priorities in life. But one man in Russia is learning that the hard way over this video.

Ruslan Sokolovsky is a YouTuber who, in that clip, showed a news story saying that anyone caught playing the game in a church could be fined up to half a million rubles and be jailed for up to three years under the country's blasphemy bill. A law that started after the Pussy Riot protest over Putin was held at the Moscow Saviour Cathedral. Sokolovsky decided to push his luck with the video, which saw him arrested within weeks of the video going live as prosecutors say he was trying to incite religious hatred.

credit//Konstantin Melnitskiy/Agence-France Presse via Getty Images

That's Sokolovsky in court on March 13, as the prosecution says there's no reason to fine him and is asking that he be sentenced to three and a half years in a penal colony for the incident. After already being in jail for three months, he got to plead his case saying "I have been in jail, I was there for three months, and it is the doorway to hell. … I do not consider myself an extremist, maybe I'm an idiot, but not in any way an extremist." The final sentencing will come down on May 11.

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