In Belarus, the Minsk City Court sentenced the editor-in-chief of the opposition website Tut.by Maryna Zolotova and the general director of the publication Ludmila Chekina to 12 years each.
This was reported by the "Vesna" human rights center.
They were found guilty of tax evasion, as well as inciting enmity and calling for actions against the national security of Belarus. The case was considered in closed mode.
There are only five defendants in the case, but only Zolotova and Chekina were in the pretrial detention center. The editor of the Department of Economics and Politics Olha Loyko, correspondent Olena Tolkachova and legal adviser Kateryna Tkachenko were released from custody on personal bail.
- On May 18, 2021, Tut.by was searched and detained. The Security Forces came to the homes of company employees and representatives of partner organizations, as well as to offices in Minsk and regional centers. That day, 15 people were detained, but later most of those involved were released.
- The Tut.by news portal was launched on October 5, 2000 and was the most visited site on the Belarusian Internet. The publication actively covered the protests in Belarus against the falsification of the presidential elections that took place in the summer of 2020. Already in August, the court of the Central District of Minsk recognized Tut.by as extremist, and in December it was stripped of its mass media status. From July 8, 2021, the TUT.BY editorial office temporarily works as the Zerkalo.io website.