In 2012, the Russian feminist group Pussy Riot created a “performance” in a Moscow cathedral protesting Putin’s support for the Orthodox Church. Three of the women were arrested, charged with religiously-motivated hooliganism, and sentenced to two years in a “penal colony” (the modern-day gulag). One was freed on appeal, and two of them were given amnesty in December, 2013. But that wasn’t the end of it.

After this performance, the Russian government decided to get tough on such protests, and so passed a law in 2013 (see also here), whose title tells the tale: “Law Amending the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and Some Legal Acts of the Russian Federation Aimed at Countering Insult of Religious Beliefs and Feelings of Citizens, Desecration of Religious Objects and Subjects of Worship (Pilgrimage) and Sites of Religious Ceremonies.”

It is under this new anti-“blasphemy” law—signed by Putin—that, according to the Guardian, Viktor Krasnov, 38, was arrested this year for a simple expression of atheism.

The charges – which carry a maximum one-year jail sentence – centre on an internet exchange that Krasnov was involved in in 2014 on a humorous local website in his hometown of Stavropol. “If I say that the collection of Jewish fairytales entitled the Bible is complete bullshit, that is that. At least for me,” Krasnov wrote, adding later “there is no God!” One of the young people involved in the dispute with Krasnov then lodged a complaint against him accusing him of “offending the sentiments of Orthodox believers”. Krasnov, whose case began last month, spent one month in a psychiatric ward last year undergoing psychiatric examinations before he was finally deemed to be sane.

This is what the Russians used to do with dissidents like Roy Medvedev: “examine” them and put them in psychiatric institutions, branding them as mentally ill for simply opposing the State. Such a neat trick! But it’s hard to believe that this old Khrushchev-era technique is still being used.

Just consider yourself lucky to be in a country (if you are in such a country!) where you can declare scripture “bullshit” without going to jail. This just goes to show that Russia, after years of nonreligious communism, has done a 180° turn, and is now defending faith as vigorously as it once defended its ideology.

And no kudos to Thug Putin, who could have put a stop to all this.

h/t: Grania