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Russian blogger who played Pokemon Go in church registered on terrorist and extremist list

All his bank accounts were blocked, according to the lawyer

Ruslan Sokolovsky Donat Sorokin/TASS

Ruslan Sokolovsky

© Donat Sorokin/TASS

YEKATERINBURG, July 14. /TASS/. Russian Blogger Ruslan Sokolovsky, who was given a suspended sentence of two years and three months for "offending religious sentiments," was included in the list of terrorists and extremists, the Federal Service for Financial Monitoring reported on Friday.

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Russian blogger gets 3.5-year suspended sentence for ‘catching Pokemon’ in church

"Ruslan Sokolovsky, born on October 20, 1994, town of Shadrinsk, Kurgansk Region," says the list of the current terrorists and extremists (Russian individuals).

The head of the Agora International Human Rights Group Pavel Chikov also confirmed this information in Twitter. "Ruslan Sokolovsky has been registered on the list of terrorists and extremists - his number is 5847. All his bank accounts were blocked," he wrote.

Sokolovsky’s lawyer Stanislav Ilchenko does not have any information on the list yet. However, the blogger’s second lawyer, Alexey Bushmakov, confirmed in a Facebook post that Sokolovsky had been introduced on the terrorist and extremist list. "Sokolovsky has been included in the list of terrorists and extremists - his number is 5847, and there are 7,524 people listed there. All his bank accounts were blocked," the lawyer wrote.

Sokolovsky case

Sokolovsky became known as a blogger who played the "Pokemon Go" video game in the Church of All Saints in Yekaterinburg, said to be built on the spot where the last Russian tsar Nicholas II and his family were killed in 1918. Earlier, Yekaterinburg’s Verkh-Isetsky District Court gave Sokolovsky a three and a half-year suspended sentence. After that, Sverdlovsk District Court commuted punishment to a suspended sentence of two years and three months. The court also ordered the blogger to remove all videos that "offended religious sentiments" and banned him from participating in mass events.

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Prosecutor demands blogger get 3.5-year jail term for ‘catching Pokemon’ in church

On May 11, following the results of the multi-discipline expert panel, the court found Sokolovsky guilty of inciting hatred, insulting religious believers and illegal trafficking of special technical equipment.

According to the court, the guilt was proved by the videos and questioning of witnesses. During the hearings, Sokolovsky did not deny that he was the author of the videos. Prosecutors demanded to sentence the blogger to three and a half years in prison.

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