Sports journalist Ivulin facing criminal charge, placed in custody after expiry of jail term

Mr. Ivulin is fac­ing a charge of orga­niz­ing and prepar­ing actions gross­ly dis­turb­ing pub­lic order and par­tic­i­pat­ing in them, which car­ries a max­i­mum sen­tence of three years in prison.

He was not released fol­low­ing the expiry of his jail term on Sat­ur­day.

Mr. Ivulin, who plays for FC Krumkačy Min­sk in Belarus’ sec­ond divi­sion and runs a pop­u­lar YouTube chan­nel focus­ing on soc­cer, was arrest­ed in Min­sk on June 3. He was sub­se­quent­ly jailed on a charge of hold­ing an unau­tho­rized protest for alleged­ly dis­play­ing a whiter-red-white flag in a win­dow.

In Novem­ber last year, Mr. Ivulin was arrest­ed for alleged­ly tak­ing part in an unau­tho­rized demon­stra­tion. He was released the fol­low­ing day. Weeks lat­er, he was sen­tenced to a fine of 810 rubels.

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