This piece of news was written by Alexandra Ma for the Huffington Post online newspaper on the 3rd March of 2016.
The news is about Viktor Krasnov, a Russian man who is facing a trial that may result in one year of prison, or a 300,000 rubles fine, for saying that "There is No God" on a social network called VKontakte. He also said that the Bible was a bunch of Jewish fairytales and mispelled "God". Article 148 from 2013 (according to the article, it "criminalizes acts that insult people's religious feelings and beliefs") is the law that condemns Viktor's actions.
He is not the first one to be criminalized by this law. Two members of the band Pussy Riot faced two years of prison for making a song where Virgin Mary told Putin to go away. The trial caused a worldwide outrage.
The online discussion was between Viktor Krasnov, Dmitry Buryashev and Alexander Kravtsov. Krasnov used his comments to stand up for sexist comments from the other two. Burnyashev and Kravtsov reported him to the police. Krasnov and his family started to receive threats from Orthodox Christians (his mother almost lost her job), but the police didn't want to do anything about it. Although the discussion is still active on VKontakte, Krasnov's comments have been deleted.
According to the article, though there's is no official religion in Russia, around 70 per cent of the population is Orthodox Christian.
In my opinion, this is very deplorable. Not Krasnov's actions, but the Russian court's. Nowadays, people are free to speak their minds online, and there is nothing that can change so much from one person to another than religious feelings. You can be an extreme Orthodox Christian, a jew, an atheist... It doesn't matter. Your feelings are yours, no one's taking that away from you. But to harm others and condemn them claiming to "defend" your religion? That is not how it works. And what is even more shameful is that the Russian "justice" is criminalizing this. What about the sexist comments from Burnyashev and Kravtsov? Do those not matter? Are those not punishable? Well, in this case, they should take a closer look at that as well.
VOCABULARY
prosecuted: to begin or conduct legal proceedings against (a person), as with a criminal charge in a court of law.
fine: money imposed as a penalty for an offense.
amid: in the middle of.
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