MOSCOW, September 27 (RIA Novosti) – A Russian atheist in a Siberian city faces up to six years in prison for posting a porn video on a social networking site.
The accused, 30-year-old Andrei Korablev, posted a pornographic video to his personal page on a social networking site in November 2011, the prosecutor’s office for Siberia’s Tyumen Region said.
The office’s statement, posted on its website, didn’t go into any more detail about the video, but did say that it had “offended the feelings of religious believers.” Internet news portal Russian Planet cited Korablev as saying he had posted a 40-second video of “masturbation…featuring a nun” on his page on Vkontakte, a Russian social networking site.
Korablev told Russian Planet that “homegrown religious fundamentalists under the guise of the Tyumen City Parental Committee” had complained about the video to get back at him for his involvement in the local League of Militant Atheists.
Also known as the Society of the Godless, the organization is an antireligious group established by the Communist Party in the 1920s to promote atheism.
Prosecutors said they had submitted the case materials to a court. If tried and found guilty of publicly displaying porn using the Internet, Korablev faces two to six years in prison, prosecutors said.
Although prosecutors said in their statement that the video had “offended the feelings of religious believers,” the statement made no mention of Korablev facing charges over that aspect of the incident. A law that made insulting religious believers’ feelings a criminal offense was signed into law in June, and stipulates punishment of up to three years in prison.
