A Russian blogger may spend 3.5 years in jail for playing 'Pokémon Go' in a church

In Russia, playing Pokémon Go inside a church is apparently worthy of jail time.

A 22-year-old Russian blogger was detained in September after publishing a video he took of himself playing Pokémon Go inside the Church of All Saints in Yekaterinburg, Russia. Prosecutors requested a sentence of 3.5 years in jail on Friday for "inciting religious hatred," The Washington Post reported, and the final verdict will be delivered May 11.

Ruslan Sokolovsky posted the video in question in direct response to news that people can be fined or imprisoned in Russia for playing Pokémon Go in churches. Along with trying to catch Pokémon (and finding out that the church is in fact a PokéStop), he joked about Jesus in the video.

"But, you know, I didn't catch the rarest Pokémon that you could find there -- Jesus," he said in the video. "But I couldn't help it. They say [he] doesn't even exist, so I'm not really surprised."

Sokolovsky has been on house arrest since being detained in September.

After prosecutors requested his prison sentence Friday, Sokolovsky compared his punishment to those who were imprisoned for joking about communism under Stalin's rule, Meduza reported.

"I may be an idiot, but I am by no means an extremist," Sokolovksy said.

The charges levied against Sokolovsky stem from the arrest of two members of the punk collective Pussy Riot for staging a protest against Vladimir Putin at a Russian Orthodox church. After those arrests, the Russian government created a law that basically made it illegal to offend religious people.

Back in September, Amnesty International called Sokolovsky's arrest an example of Putin's free speech crackdown.

"Ruslan is a prisoner of conscience, punished for peacefully expressing views – which he is perfectly entitled to do," the organization said.