A vacation in Turkey turned into criminal prosecution for a married couple from Russia — they were detained for reading the Bible in the Grand Hagia Sophia Mosque in Istanbul, Gazeta.Ru reports. First, the Russians were taken to a police station, and then transferred to a deportation center. The Russian Consulate General in Istanbul said it is dealing with the fate of the detained tourists. Meanwhile, members of the State Duma believe that the Russians “did not commit any crime.”

32-year-old Igor and 35-year-old Viktoria flew to Turkey from Moscow for a vacation. The next day they went to Hagia Sophia, where the man began reading the Bible he had brought with him. After that, the couple was “immediately surrounded and taken downstairs, out of the mosque,” Igor said. They were then brought to a police station in the Fatih district and forced to hand over their belongings for inventory.

“They are not allowing us to return to the hotel, they took my shoelaces, and they want to take fingerprints. They said that our fate would be decided next. There is not a single person here who speaks Russian. Frankly, we do not know what to do or whom to turn to,” Igor said.

According to the police report, Viktoria said she did not know about the ban on reading the Bible. The woman claims that only her husband was reading the book, while she only occasionally glanced at the text. The document emphasizes that the couple is suspected of violating Article 216 of the Turkish Criminal Code, which provides for liability for inciting hatred and humiliating groups of the population. The article’s sanctions include, in particular, imprisonment for up to one year for publicly insulting religious values.