19-Year-Old Russian Student Faces Prison for Meme Comparing Jesus to Jon Snow

[NeoGreen]

http://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2018/07/28/19-year-old-russian-student-faces-prison-for-meme-comparing-jesus-to-jon-snow/

19-Year-Old Russian Student Faces Prison for Meme Comparing Jesus to Jon Snow
July 28, 2018

A 19-year-old film student from Siberia is facing up to five years in prison for a meme that compared Jesus Christ to Jon Snow, a character in Game of Thrones.

This isn’t the first time the Russian government has punished someone for allegedly blaspheming against Christianity — just last year a Russian YouTuber was arrested for playing Pokémon Go in church. This time the victim is Daniil Markin, from the Siberian city of Barnaul, and he chose to speak out only after seeing another resident complain of a similar charge for her memes.

Markin was actually accused of inciting hate speech over several images that includes jokes about Christianity, which were on his account with a social media networking site. That same site, VKontakte (VK), has been cited in the similar case against the other Barnaul memer.

The charges against Markin, which he publicly revealed this week for the first time, come amid a broadening Russian crackdown on online speech in recent years that rights advocates say is being used to stifle dissent and help law enforcement officials rack up convictions.

He disclosed the case after a fellow Barnaul resident, 23-year-old Maria Motuznaya, drew national attention this week by revealing on Twitter that she is facing hate-speech charges for memes on her VKontakte account that authorities say are racist and denigrate religion.

According to case materials reviewed by RFE/RL, Markin is accused of “inciting hatred” against religious believers for a series of satirical images on his VKontakte account between December 2013 and January 2017.

The Russian government said it had a problem with several images on Markin’s VKontakte account, but the one that stands out to me is a Game of Thrones/Jesus mashup meme that says, “Jon Snow is risen! Truly he is risen!”

[NeoGreen]

1. Ok so...

Last edited Thu Aug 2, 2018, 01:08 PM - Edit history (1)

...if Jon Snow is jeebus...


What about Beric Dondarrion?

He rose from the dead too, multiple times...take that JS (or is it Aegon Targaryen VI?).

Either way, are we going to be subject to:

[Act_of_Reparation]

2. You mean Aegon VI.

Yeah, I've read the books once or twice...

[NeoGreen]

3. Damn...

...my error. But, yeah...that one.

[qazplm135]

4. talk about cultural whiplash

to go from the officially atheist, hostile to religion SU to the ridiculously Christian Russia in the space of a generation.

[Act_of_Reparation]

5. The rules have changed, but the game remains the same.

It's hard to look at the Soviet mythos and not see how it parallels religion in many respects. The Soviets suppressed religion because they didn't like competition.