CPJ: The Ivulin case shows that the authorities will use any pretext to punish members of the press

“Belaru­sian author­i­ties should imme­di­ate­ly and uncon­di­tion­al­ly release jour­nal­ist Ali­ak­san­dr Ivulin and let all mem­bers of the press work freely and safe­ly,” said CPJ Europe and Cen­tral Asia Pro­gram Coor­di­na­tor Gul­noza Said. “Ivulin’s case shows that author­i­ties will use any excuse to pun­ish mem­bers of the press who dare to cov­er protests or oth­er news­wor­thy events that the gov­ern­ment prefers be kept qui­et.”

Sports journalist Aliaksandr Ivulin sentenced to 2 years in prison

Ivulin cov­ers soc­cer for Tri­buna, Belarus’s largest inde­pen­dent sports news web­site, and also runs the soc­cer-focused YouTube chan­nel Chest­nOK, which has about 75,000 sub­scribers, accord­ing to Tri­buna direc­tor Mak­sim Berazin­sky, who spoke to CPJ in late 2021, and CPJ research.

Berazin­sky told CPJ he believed ChestnOK’s inter­views with ath­letes who sup­port­ed the 2020 protests against Alek­san­dr Lukashenko, cou­pled with Ivulin’s pop­u­lar­i­ty on the chan­nel, prompt­ed his June 3, 2021, arrest.

Ivulin was ini­tial­ly sen­tenced to 30 days in prison for alleged­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in protests in Min­sk that he was cov­er­ing as a jour­nal­ist; on his 29th day in deten­tion, author­i­ties declared that he was a sus­pect in a crim­i­nal case, and on July 9 charged him with orga­niz­ing vio­la­tions of pub­lic order, accord­ing to media reports from the time. 

His tri­al at the Sovi­et Dis­trict Court in Min­sk began on Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 17, 2022, and con­clud­ed Wednes­day; Ivulin was found guilty of orga­niz­ing “activ­i­ties bla­tant­ly aimed at dis­rupt­ing social order” and was sen­tenced to two years in prison, accord­ing to news reports and the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, an inde­pen­dent advo­ca­cy and trade group.

Belarus held at least 19 jour­nal­ists behind bars for their work at the time of CPJ’s most recent prison cen­sus on Decem­ber 1, 2021.