A Russian blogger named Ruslan Sokolovky was arrested for playing Pokemon Go in the Church of All Saints in Yekaterinburg. He was recording himself walking through the rooms of the church in search of rare Pokemon. At the end of his video he says, “But, you know, I didn’t catch the rarest Pokemon that you could there,” referring to Jesus.

He then said that he heard the Pokemon, Jesus, didn’t even exist so he wasn’t surprised. After posting the video, Russian officials ended up seeing it online. He was then detained and charged with inciting religious hatred, which I believe is a pretty far stretch. He was given a sentence of three and a half years in prison and is now protesting that his potential punishment outweighs his crime.

Obviously this video that he created was intended to be comedic. Although Sokolovky has stated that he is an Atheist, he is not in any way saying that he hates religion. The religion debate has been around since religion was first created and I’m not about to start throwing my opinions around in any way. I’ve watched plenty of stand-up comedians and am a huge fan of comedic videos. Believe me, I’ve heard people say way more about much more awful topics than what this guy did, and people pay to see those people perform.

Anyway, Sokolovky is completely clueless as to how his joke got him this far and is hoping that he can receive a smaller punishment. I hear jokes like this all the time and I’ve never heard of anybody going to prison for it, especially not for over three years. Obviously, the rules are different in Russia than they are in North America. Hopefully the young man can find a way to get himself a more suitable punishment.

This story is still developing and I’m sure new details will be posted up soon. We’re going to keep you updated right here on the site, so make sure you check back often to see what happens to this 22-year-old. Do you think he deserves to be in prison for what he did or do you think he should have more appropriate action taken against him?