Pokemon catcher

How Yekaterinburg blogger Sokolovsky offended the feelings of believers and for which he was given a 3.5 year suspended sentence

Three and a half years of probation - such a sentence was issued on May 11 by the Verkh-Isetsky District Court of Yekaterinburg to video blogger Ruslan Sokolovsky. In August 2016, he filmed a video about how he catches Pokemon in the Yekaterinburg Temple-on-the-Blood, and already in September he was detained on suspicion of insulting the feelings of believers and extremism.

The prosecution demanded a real term for Sokolovsky, but Judge Ekaterina Shoponyak gave him a suspended sentence. Mitigating circumstances are Sokolovsky's young age, positive references, no criminal record, and the fact that he helps his sick mother. At the same time, the court ordered the blogger to remove all videos that offended believers.

What were they judged for?

Ruslan Sokolovsky spent eight months in jail and under house arrest. The trial in his case managed to become one of the most high-profile in recent times, not only for Yekaterinburg, but for Russia as a whole. This is not the first trial in the case of insulting the feelings of believers, but it was in the “Sokolovsky case” that the video blogger, Pokémon, the Russian Orthodox Church and even feminists converged at one point - the trial was doomed to become indicative. It is on the Yekaterinburg precedent that everyone who wishes to initiate and conduct cases of insulting religious feelings will now be guided.

Most often you can hear: the Yekaterinburg blogger was tried for “catching Pokemon” in the church - after all, the very story of Sokolovsky began with the PokemonGo video game he filmed in the Temple on the Blood. At that time, few people knew about the blogger, and many remembered him from the news headlines precisely as a “pokemon catcher”.

Meanwhile, the accusation was not based on the fact that the blogger walked around the church with a smartphone and made a video (even believers admitted in court that the blogger had not violated anything in this way), but Sokolovsky’s public speeches, replete with obscene language. It was they who were qualified as "inciting ethnic hatred and hatred towards believers." Exactly for this reason, not one video (about catching Pokemon) appears in the case, but as many as nine, in which experts found signs of “inciting hatred”. Moreover, according to the materials of the court, the protocols for some videos were drawn up in the first half of 2016 - that is, a few months before the Pokemon catching in the church.

Signs of extremism, as follows from the indictment, were found in the videos “I flew into space, I didn’t see Chechens” (incitement of hatred towards representatives of the peoples of the Caucasus), “Hate letters from feminists” (incitement of hatred towards feminists), “Patriarch Kirill, you ... ”(incitement of hatred towards the Orthodox clergy), “Ideal Orthodox marriage” (incitement of hatred towards persons professing Orthodoxy), and so on.

In the same nine videos, experts also found signs of insulting the feelings of believers. So, in a video about catching Pokemon, experts considered it unacceptable that Jesus Christ was called “rare Pokemon” in it. In the same video, the combination of church hymns with obscenities is attributed by experts to insulting the feelings of believers.

In the video “Ideal Orthodox Marriage,” Sokolovsky, according to experts, mocked the idea of ​​the “immaculate conception.”

In another video - "Sokolovsky in prison for catching Pokemon" - the feelings of believers, according to experts, were offended by "endowing Christ with the properties of a zombie."

By the way, in the expert opinion on the video about catching Pokemon, which was used by the prosecution, there is also such a wording: “public denial of the existence of God.” This gave rise to a version among the public that Sokolovsky was actually being tried for atheism. However, the same version was voiced by the blogger himself.

During the judicial debate, Ruslan Sokolovsky was presented by the state prosecution as an ardent nationalist, as well as a hater of the faith and customs of other peoples. According to the prosecutor, by his actions the blogger encroached no less on the constitutional order of Russia. By this was meant the infringement of the rights of believers to freedom of conscience.

Blasphemy as a crime

As follows from the case file, the key detail of the prosecution was an examination commissioned by the investigation. The analysis of Sokolovsky's videos was carried out by a group of five people: two linguists, a psychologist, a sociologist and religious historian Alexei Starostin, who conducted a religious examination. At that time, Starostin headed the Department of Theology at the Ural Mining University, and already during the process, he became the head of the Department of Political Sciences at the Ural Federal University.

It was on Starostin's conclusion that Ruslan Sokolovsky was charged with insulting the feelings of believers. But if the situation with the article “inciting hatred or enmity” is relatively clear – the methods for detecting extremism have long been developed, the only question is who and what recommendations are used when identifying signs of “inciting hatred or enmity”, then the article of the Criminal Code concerning insulting feelings believers, a large number of questions arose in relation to the Sokolovsky case.

Thus, at the trial, expert Starostin admitted that there was no methodology for conducting a religious examination yet, and when making a conclusion about Sokolovsky's videos, he was guided by the law on freedom of conscience. At the same time, during the process, Starostin gave his own interpretation of Article 148 of the Criminal Code. In his opinion, this article can be likened to legislation prohibiting blasphemy.

“Legislation to protect the feelings of believers in ancient times was called the law of blasphemy. It is not new for discussion, ”Starostin explained at the trial. And he admitted that he came to this conclusion on the basis of "his own reflections", since the law does not spell out what insulting the feelings of believers is. Many of Starostin's answers began with the phrase: "I was thinking ..."

Since there is an obvious gap in the wording in the legislation on insulting the feelings of believers, Starostin went further in his “reflections” and, focusing on the laws of the Russian Empire and the Middle Ages, came to the conclusion that the denial of God is also an insult to the feelings of believers.

Does all this mean that an atheist can be prosecuted? In court, Alexey Starostin did not give an unequivocal answer to this question.

“We need to look at the form in which the negation (of God) is given. There is, for example, atheistic literature. There are links and sources. But when it is used indiscriminately, it contains insults to the feelings of believers,” the expert said.

“We need to look at the form in which the negation (of God) is given. There is, for example, atheistic literature. There are links and sources. But when it is used indiscriminately, it contains insults to the feelings of believers, ”the expert said.

In the case of Sokolovsky, according to Starostin, the insult to the feelings of believers was that the blogger denied the existence of God, using obscene language. The expert considered this blasphemy, since "swearing is unacceptable in religions."

As a result, only one direct conclusion can be drawn from all the expert's conclusions - it is impossible to deny God using swear words.

Ordinary Feelings

Another controversial detail at the trial was the very definition of the feelings of believers. Alexei Starostin had to resort to his own reflections here too.

“I imagine what the feelings of believers are based on ten years of communication with believers,” the expert said in court, without providing a more detailed explanation of the term.

Problems with the definition of their own feelings arose at the trial and the "insulted believers" themselves, who spoke in favor of the criminal prosecution of Sokolovsky. They could not isolate their religious experiences into a separate feeling - they only compared it with a feeling of love (for the Motherland or mother).

And even the most savvy of the believers in legal terms - the rector of the church Big Chrysostom, the Metropolitan's adviser on legal issues, Priest Vladimir Yavich, in response to the question of what the feelings of believers are, only shrugged. “From a legal point of view, there is no such definition,” the priest said at the trial.

On the other hand, Zoya Chernyshkova, the head of the Department of Religious Studies of UrFU, who was summoned to court by the defense, bluntly stated: from a scientific point of view, there is no separate category of feelings of believers. The specialist explained that the believer experiences the same feelings as other people.

“These are ordinary feelings that a person directs towards a sacred object,” the religious scholar noted.

collective insult

Meanwhile, Sokolovsky's case is built not only on expertise (although it occupies a key place), but also on the testimony of offended believers who are witnesses. There is not a single victim in the case, although at least one video was addressed personally to the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill.

Another detail is also noteworthy: most of the offended believers are parishioners of the Great Chrysostom temple, although the events with Pokemon catching took place in the Church-on-the-Blood.

The priests of Chrysostom and most of the parishioners of this church explained their presence in court with "experiences for the place of death of the royal family" and the entire Orthodox faith. However, one of the witnesses, Oleg Rukavishnikov, said that the priest of the Big Chrysostom, Priest Sergiy Kungurov, himself organized the showing of Sokolovsky's videos for the flock. Another parishioner, named Pavlov, said that Kungurov personally introduced him to the blogger's videos.

“Then Father Sergiy went to testify… And I was unemployed and also went with him,” parishioner Pavlov said.

In addition to Pavlov, along with Kungurov, several more people went to testify, whose feelings were hurt by Sokolovsky's videos. Before the public film screening, none of the offended believers had heard of the blogger from Yekaterinburg.

One of the witnesses, Oleg Rukavishnikov, said that the priest of the Big Chrysostom, Priest Sergiy Kungurov, himself organized the showing of Sokolovsky's videos for the flock. Another parishioner, named Pavlov, said that Kungurov personally introduced him to the videos of the blogger

From the testimony of Rukavishnikov and Pavlov, it follows that Priest Sergiy Kungurov deliberately introduced the believers to videos that could offend them. From among the audience of this film screening, the main backbone of witnesses was formed. Believers familiar with the order in the Yekaterinburg diocese believe that Kungurov did not act of his own free will. Then whose?

One of the versions: the rector of the temple, Priest Viktor Yavich, who also appeared in court as a witness for the prosecution, could have given the order for mass viewing of the videos.

Meanwhile, since the opening of the Great Chrysostom Church, its rector has been priest Alexei Kulberg, who last year became Bishop Eugene and received the position of vicar. In the diocese, he is considered the second person after Metropolitan Kirill. It was under Kulberg that an Orthodox community was formed in Bolshoi Zlatoust. Priest Viktor Yavich inherited this flock. However, the name of the bishop was not mentioned during the process.

Meanwhile, the senior priest of the Temple-on-the-Blood, in which Sokolovsky caught Pokemon, Archpriest Maxim Minyailo, admitted in court that he did not want to take part in the process and came here under pressure from his parishioners.

spy pen

In total, there are 17 episodes in the Ruslan Sokolovsky case, and the seventeenth episode appeared after a ballpoint pen with a DVR was found in the blogger's home. On this fact, a criminal case was initiated under the article "Illegal circulation of special technical means intended for secretly obtaining information."

However, there are a number of inconsistencies in this part as well. The investigation claims that the gadget banned for use in Russia belongs to a blogger. The basis for this accusation was that the pen was found in Sokolovsky's rented apartment. No receipts that would indicate the purchase of the gadget by a blogger, no packaging was found.

Whether something was found in the memory of the gadget that would testify against the defendant, the investigation does not specify.

Sokolovsky revealed his version of the origin of the pen only in court: the blogger claimed that one of his friends could have forgotten the pen in the apartment. However, the defendant could not remember any data about his friend so that he could be summoned to court and interrogated.

“I myself wanted to get this pen to go and expose psychics. I even ordered it, but did not have time to pay. I was arrested,” Sokolovsky explained in court.

“I myself wanted to get this pen to go and expose psychics. I even ordered it, but did not have time to pay. I got arrested"

By the way, the Criminal Code does not stipulate responsibility for the storage of such gadgets. The investigation did not provide evidence that it was the blogger who bought and used the “spy” pen.

Blogger-cosmopolitan

Ruslan Sokolovsky did not plead guilty to any of the episodes in the criminal case. At the same time, he apologized to everyone who could be offended by his videos. To accusations of extremism, the blogger replied that he was a cosmopolitan and for him all people are equal, regardless of their nationality. “For me, there are no nationalities or religions. I believe that religion is an outdated institution, ”Sokolovsky said in court.

At the same time, according to the opinions of Ruslan's friends, he should not be perceived as an ardent preacher of the ideas of equality and freedom. In communication with friends, Sokolovsky tried not to touch on these topics. He shared his worldview mainly with the subscribers of his blog.

Sokolovsky does not hide the fact that he considered religion as one of the "topical topics" for his blog, and nothing more. Yes, and Ruslan, as it turned out, became a blogger not from a good life. The young man had to earn money from the age of 16 in order to provide for himself and his sick retired mother. Sokolovsky came to the YouTube video channel, seeing this as an opportunity to earn money. But in order to make money as a video blogger, you need to maintain the interest of subscribers. Sokolovsky's provocations and harsh statements were supposed to attract a new audience. But he did not expect that law enforcement agencies would be interested in his videos.

“I came to the temple. He came, stood, but I did not think that I would suffer any punishment for this. Several articles have now been initiated. My mistake was, probably, that I spoke about religion using swear words. I will not repeat this mistake again, ”Sokolovsky explained at the trial.

The manner of Sokolovsky's speech in court was not much different from what can be seen in the commercials (with the exception, of course, of the absence of obscene language). Perhaps for this reason, not all offended believers accepted his apologies, considering them "antics."

“My mistake was probably that I spoke about religion using obscenities. I won't repeat that mistake again."

Judge Ekaterina Shoponyak considered Sokolovsky's guilt proven in all 17 episodes of the case. The verdict read by her on May 11 actually reproduced the indictment with all the conclusions of the experts involved in the investigation.

“Showed demonstrative disrespect for believers and Jesus, who is called a rare Pokémon,” the verdict says. It is also recognized as offensive for believers to “endow Jesus with the features of a zombie.” Moreover, even the “information that denies the existence of God” itself is described in the verdict as “offending adherents of Christianity and Islam.” "Giving Jesus the traits of a zombie" is now officially considered a crime.

Photo: https://ru.wikipedia.org