The court of Minsk is Krumkachi. 2: 0

The journalist "Tribuna" and football player Alexander Ivulin was sentenced to Belarus to two years in the colony. He dreamed of starting a career on the field at the age of 30, but hit the pre -trial detention center in a wake of repression

The court of the Soviet district in Minsk sentenced the football player of the capital Club Krumkachi and the journalist Tribuna.com Alexander Ivulin to two years in the colony. He was accused of organizing the "riots" through a sports YouTube channel and active participation in protests (part 1 of article 342 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus). "New" tells the story of a journalist and an athlete who was behind bars in the general stream of Belarusian repression.

Alexandra Ivulina, along with the operator Yaroslav Pisarenko, was detained on June 3 last year. The next day Ivulin was appointed 30 days of administrative arrest under Art. 24.23 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Republic of Belarus (violation of the procedure for organizing or conducting mass events)-supposedly for a protest white-red-white flag hung in the apartment window.

After 30 days, Ivulin did not come out, and later it became known that he was transferred to pre -trial detention center No. 1 of Minsk and he became a defendant in a criminal case.

The final prosecution says that Ivulin participated in unauthorized rallies in Minsk on August 23 and September 27, 2020. In addition, the UK Belarus claims that from August 2020 to March 2021 he released a video with the motivations of “destructive activity” and discrediting the current government on his YouTube channel.

The Investigative Committee stated that the journalist and the athlete "inclined citizens to commit actions to grossly violating public order."

In addition, the civil lawsuit was filed by Minsktrans, the amount of over 39.6 thousand Belarusian rubles (more than 1.1 million Russian rubles).

At the trial of January 17, Ivulin said that on January 23, 2020 he went to the Gogol bookstore in the center of Minsk. On the way, the girl gave him a flag and offered to take a picture: “How can you refuse a beautiful girl when she offers to take a picture? He took a picture and then went about his business. ” He posted the photo on Instagram.

On September 27, according to Ivulin, he went to meet with friends, but where he needed to go, there were many people. An unfamiliar guy approached him and also asked to take a picture with the flag. The fact that his videos on YouTube called for something, Ivulin denies.

Before the detention, Alexander wrote for a long time for the sports publication "Tribune".

“He came to us by a student and began as a freelanceman,” says Maxim Berezinsky, the project manager in Belarus and Ukraine. -At some point, somewhere in 2013-2014, he became a full-fledged full-time author. He wrote mainly about football, his specialization was interviews, reports, some insidies, observations, he made several major investigations noticeable in Belarus, according to various financial moments in sports. ”

The largest of Ivulin’s investigations is about transfers in the Soligorsk FC Shakhtar. It said that the club spends money “on very dubious legionnaires”, as well as about the possible connection of what is happening with the Global Sport Invest and agent Evgeny Kultaev.

In addition to working in the "Tribune", Alexander had YouTube and telegram channel "Honest". In releases, he already talked not only about sporting events. The channel on YouTube is currently more than 75 thousand subscribers, in Telegram - almost 3.5 thousand. After the detention of Ivulin, the content for them is created by Yaroslav Pisarenko, who was detained with the journalist in the summer. Pisarenko in June last year left administrative arrest and was released. In September, the Chatnok telegram channel, Chatik Honkoka and YouTube channel Court of the railway district of Vitebsk recognized as “extremist”. A month and a half before, the court made a similar decision regarding the materials of the stands and social networks of the publication.

Berezinsky believes that the main reason for the persecution of Ivulin is his media and actually YouTube channel. The head of the “Tribuna” in Belarus and Ukraine notes that, in fact, Alexander stood on a par with Sergey Tikhanovsky, sentenced a month ago, to 18 years in an intensified regime, Pavel Spirin, who received a general regime for 4 and a half years of a general regime, and other famous opposition bloggers of Belarus.

“I think that the regime realized that alternative sources of information and YouTube primarily as a platform carry the main threat in terms of the fact that people receive some other opinion, different from what they broadcast on TV. Actually, therefore, a blow was struck by Sasha, ”says Berezinsky.

At the same time, the conclusions of the experts were announced at the court on January 17: “As a result, as I understand it, from the entire amount of information, at least in court it was talked about, the questions arose only to the design. That is, to those pictures and headlines that were. They say that he thereby urged people to go out somewhere or something else, but any person can make sure of this: there were no calls just in the rollers, ”continues the head of the stands. In the videos, people expressed their opinion on the election events and what happened in Belarus after August 9, 2020, not calling for anyone.

Ivulin himself at the trial said that he first created his personal YouTube channel, and renamed it about three years ago to the “honest”. To the question about the description of the channel, he answered this way: “There was a story about the fact that we make Belarusian sport better, we make a challenge, in various cool interesting formats we talk about Belarusian sports.” When the prosecutor said that he was charged with laying out the records of a “motive” about events in Belarus,

Ivulin said that there was no motivation in the videos: “There were absolutely talking about things that interest everyone, every simple ordinary person living in Belarus.”

The channel attracted the attention of the authorities long before the detention of Ivulin, even before the presidential election in August 2020. According to Berezinsky, around the same year, he and Ivulin went to the Belarusian football Federation, and at that time her deputy chairman Mikhail Botnikov “expressed disagreement with the editorial policy” in a fairly rude form ”YouTube channel.

During the debate on January 19, Ivulin in the last word published by the Mediazone. Belarus (the Russian Mediazona was recognized as the Ministry of Justice “Inoagent”.- Ed. ) , He said that thanks to the “honest” people began to get involved in sports: “And if my YouTube channel was, no matter how pathetic it sounded, then a mission, mission This is definitely not discrediting the social and economic, political situation in the Republic of Belarus. ”

However, last year, the 29-year-old Ivulin decided to concentrate on him more, in addition, he signed a contract with the Krumkachi football club, playing in the first league of the Belarusian Championship. The club itself was founded in 2014. In 2018, he had problems related to the renewal of documents: then in February-Marta before the start of the new national championship, the Belarusian Football Federation refused to accept applications for licensing, referring to the delay in the provision of documents. The appeal and appeal to the Arbitration Committee did not bring the result, and the team could not enter into participation in the championships of the highest and first leagues. After the decision of the arbitration committee, a group of team fans quickly issued a new legal entity - NFK Krumkachi. The created team, by agreement with the leadership of FC Krumkachi, reserved symbols, but legally did not become the complete successor of the club. Later, the new team applied to participate in the championship of the second league of the 2018 season.

According to Berezinsky, even before becoming a journalist, Ivulin was engaged in a football school of the Minsk MTZ RIPO (later the football club was renamed Partizan, in 2014 he was disbanded due to financial problems). Due to the injury, Ivulin had to leave training, later he began to actively engage in journalism. In 2021, Alexander completely rebuilt his life: he became more active in leading his channel, seriously went to football and published almost nothing on the stands.

As part of Krumkachi, Ivulin managed to play in several friendly matches. He did not manage to debut in an official meeting because of the arrest, but on January 19, right in the courtroom, the football player signed a new contract with Krumkachi.

“I want to note that the last almost seven months I could not help not only my football club, but also the main fans in my life - my parents. It's hard to speak. My parents are a retired mother and father-a disabled person of the third group. In addition to them, I still have one very important fan, ”Ivulin said in the last word. - Not many know about it. The fact is that I have a brother, he is a disabled person since childhood, his name is Sergey. And this year he will be 39 years old. This is my older brother, but because of the specifics of development, his socialization did not go as needed and at the age of 39 he cannot provide himself, cannot work. The whole circle of human communication is three people, one of whom is me. ”

The journalist wanted his older brother a gift to his elder brother, since because of the features of the development of his brother they could not communicate in correspondence, only personally. But the desire did not come true.

Ivulin himself all the time that he was in a pre -trial detention center emphasized that he did not violate one of the Belarusian laws - he had nothing to hide.

“He always worked honestly and did not do anything that they attributed to him. He simply expressed his opinion, or, even more often, provided a place so that someone else could speak out and tell about his attitude to either sports, or to sports management, or to some other events that take place in Belarus. We often talked about this, Sasha also adheres to the point of view that athletes can express their opinion on any situations, including when there is some kind of political crisis in the country, ”Berezinsky concludes.