Sports journalist Ivulin charged with criminal offense

Min­sk, 9 July. Ali­ak­san­dr Ivulin, a sports jour­nal­ist and soc­cer play­er, has been for­mal­ly charged with orga­niz­ing and prepar­ing actions gross­ly dis­turb­ing pub­lic order or active­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in them under the Crim­i­nal Code’s Arti­cle 342.

If found guilty, Mr. Ivulin may face up to four years in prison.

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 for 30 days on a charge of hold­ing an unau­tho­rized protest for alleged­ly dis­play­ing a whiter-red-white flag in a win­dow.

The young man was not released fol­low­ing the expiry of his jail term. He was declared a polit­i­cal pris­on­er by Belaru­sian human rights groups on July 5.

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.