Authorities extend detention of sports journalist Aliaksandr Ivulin

In was not imme­di­ate­ly known for how long the deten­tion was extend­ed.

Mr. Ivulin, who plays for FC Krumkačy Min­sk in Belarus’ sec­ond divi­sion and has a pop­u­lar YouTube chan­nel focus­ing on soc­cer, has already been in cus­tody for four months.

He was arrest­ed in his Min­sk home on June 3 and sen­tenced to 30 days in jail the fol­low­ing day on a charge of stag­ing an unau­tho­rized demon­stra­tion over a white-red-white-flag in a win­dow of his apart­ment.

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

In addi­tion, 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.

Andrej Masloŭs­ki, a jour­nal­ist who had worked for by.tribuna.com for more than a decade before quit­ting the job in July 2021, was sen­tenced to 15 days in jail on Sep­tem­ber 8 for alleged­ly dis­trib­ut­ing extrem­ist con­tent, an offense penal­ized by the Civ­il Offens­es Code’s Arti­cle 19.11.

Mr. Masloŭs­ki was arrest­ed on Sep­tem­ber 6, after 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 his apart­ment.

The jour­nal­ist was sub­se­quent­ly 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.

«Дабро заўсёды вяртаецца». Палітвязень Аляксандр Івулін атрымаў паштоўку, якую сам напісаў шэсць гадоў таму