Russian Pokémon GO blogger gets 3.5 year suspended sentence

Russian blogger Ruslan Sokolovsky has been given a 3.5 year suspended prison sentence for playing Pokémon GO in a church.

The Yekaterinburg court found 22-year-old Sokolovsky guilty of insulting religious believers and inciting religious hatred, charges to which the blogger pleaded not guilty. At his trial, which took place earlier today, Sokolovsky was also found guilty of “illegal trafficking of special technical equipment” after a pen with a built-in video camera was found at his home.

Sokolovsky was arrested in September 2016 for inciting religious hatred, after he posted a video of himself catching Pokémon in an Orthodox church in Yekaterinburg.

Sokolovsky’s arrest and subsequent detention have been the subject of sharp criticism from human rights groups such as Amnesty International, which dubbed the trial a “farcical attack on freedom of expression”.

Source: BBC News