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  • Sports journalist sentenced to 15 days in jail over “extremist” content

    According to the team, a judge of the Centraĺny District Court in Minsk found Mr. Masloŭski guilty of distributing extremist material, an offense penalized by the Civil Offenses Code’s Article 19.11.

    Mr. Masloŭski was arrested on September 6.

    Offi­cers of the inte­ri­or ministry’s orga­nized crime and cor­rup­tion depart­ment, which has played a cen­tral role in the government’s crack­down on polit­i­cal oppo­nents, searched Mr. Masloŭski’s apart­ment before arrest­ing him.

    The jour­nal­ist was placed in the deten­tion cen­ter on Akresci­na Street in Min­sk.

    A pro-gov­ern­ment Telegram chan­nel lat­er pub­lished a video of an osten­si­bly repen­tant Mr. Masloŭs­ki speak­ing about the sports news website’s alleged­ly pro-oppo­si­tion edi­to­r­i­al pol­i­cy fol­low­ing the dis­put­ed August 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion and regret­ting his par­tic­i­pa­tion in post-elec­tion protests.

    Mr. Masloŭs­ki, a 37-year-old father-of-two, joined the by.tribuna.com team in 2010 and quit the job in July 2021.

    Mak­sim Bier­azin­s­ki, head of the site who is cur­rent­ly stay­ing abroad, had his Min­sk apart­ment searched on Sep­tem­ber 1.

    As a result of the search, a computer’s hard dri­ve, some mem­o­ry sticks, white and red wrist­bands, a mag­net bear­ing the image of Paho­nia, Belarus’ his­tor­i­cal­ly nation­al coat of arms, and a base­ball bat fea­tur­ing the Tribuna.com logo were seized.

    Ali­ak­san­dr Ivulin, a by.tribuna.com jour­nal­ist, was arrest­ed at his Min­sk home on June 3 and sen­tenced to 30 days in jail the fol­low­ing day on a charge of hold­ing an unau­tho­rized protest.

    He was not released on com­ple­tion of his jail sen­tence. Instead, he was put in cus­tody and charged under Part One of the Crim­i­nal Code’s Arti­cle 342, which penal­izes “orga­niz­ing or tak­ing an active part in group actions gross­ly dis­turb­ing pub­lic order.”

    Mr. Ivulin is cur­rent­ly held in Pre­tri­al Deten­tion Cen­ter No. 1 on Val­adarska­ha Street in Min­sk.

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