Help for the family of Denis Ivashin, a journalist on trial for “treason against the state”

My son, Denis Ivashin, is a jour­nal­ist and the Belaruss­ian edi­tor of the inter­na­tion­al vol­un­teer com­mu­ni­ty Inform­Na­palm. Denis is a Belaru­sian cit­i­zen of Ukrain­ian ori­gin, who has always tried to achieve jus­tice and truth through his activ­i­ties. His main jour­nal­is­tic projects have been inves­ti­gat­ing crimes com­mit­ted by the state. 

Denis Ivashin inves­ti­gat­ed the con­struc­tion of the Poe­dem Poed­im restau­rant near Kuropaty. In addi­tion, Denis told the whole truth about the influ­ence of the “Russ­ian world” on Belarus and Syr­ia, as well as — about the joint exer­cis­es of the Russ­ian Guard and the Belaru­sian secu­ri­ty forces. In March 2021, a few days before his deten­tion, my son pub­lished an inves­ti­ga­tion about for­mer mem­bers of the Ukrain­ian Berkut spe­cial unit who had been recruit­ed by the Belaru­sian secu­ri­ty forces. He had col­lect­ed evi­dence that the for­mer “Berku­tovt­sy” also took part in the dis­per­sal of mass protests in Belarus in August 2020. 

On March 12, 2021, Denis was detained in his apart­ment in Grod­no. Ini­tial­ly he was charged with Arti­cle 365 of the Crim­i­nal Code of the Repub­lic of Belarus — “inter­fer­ence in the activ­i­ties of a police offi­cer. In Sep­tem­ber, Denis was charged with «trea­son against the state». In its pub­lic state­ments, the KGB claims that my son worked for the secu­ri­ty ser­vices of Ukraine, thus dam­ag­ing the nation­al secu­ri­ty of Belarus. He faces up to 15 years in prison.

The court case is entire­ly aimed at find­ing as much infor­ma­tion as pos­si­ble against Denis Ivashin and get­ting revenge on him for telling the truth about state crimes. As his moth­er, I would real­ly like to appeal to Belaru­sians and ask for sup­port. Now Denis is in urgent need of legal assis­tance.

Our fam­i­ly can­not afford to pay a lawyer in order to defend our son in court. We would be very grate­ful to every­one who responds to help.

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