Maryna Zolatava named among released prisoners

Accord­ing to inde­pen­dent media, Mary­na Zolata­va, edi­tor-in-chief of the Belaru­sian news media out­let TUT.BY, is on the list of pris­on­ers released fol­low­ing talks between an Amer­i­can del­e­ga­tion led by U.S. pres­i­den­tial envoy John Coale and offi­cial Min­sk.

Mary­na Zolata­va in the first moments after her depor­ta­tion from Belarus to Ukraine. Screen­shot

Mary­na Zolata­va was detained on May 18, 2021, as part of a crim­i­nal case against TUT.BY alleg­ing large-scale tax eva­sion.

The tax eva­sion charges were lat­er dropped. She was instead charged for her pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties under Arti­cle 361 of the Crim­i­nal Code (calls for actions aimed at harm­ing the nation­al secu­ri­ty of the Repub­lic of Belarus) and Arti­cle 130 (incite­ment of hatred or enmi­ty).

In Octo­ber 2022, the KGB placed Zolata­va on its list of “per­sons involved in ter­ror­ist activ­i­ties.”

On March 17, 2023, Min­sk City Court judge Valiantsi­na Zianke­vich sen­tenced TUT.BY’s edi­tor-in-chief to 12 years impris­on­ment in prison. On July 31, 2023, she was trans­ferred to Women’s Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty No. 4 in Homel.

On August 18, 2023, the Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs added her to the list of “cit­i­zens of Belarus, for­eign nation­als, or state­less per­sons involved in extrem­ist activ­i­ties.”

Mary­na Zolata­va joined TUT.BY in 2004 and quick­ly became its edi­tor-in-chief. She was short­list­ed for the 2022 award pre­sent­ed by the Belaru­sian human rights com­mu­ni­ty in the “Jour­nal­ist of the Year” cat­e­go­ry.

In 2019, she was con­vict­ed and fined in a crim­i­nal case over “neg­li­gence by an offi­cial” relat­ed to unau­tho­rized access to infor­ma­tion belong­ing to the state news agency BelTA. Human rights defend­ers con­sid­ered that case polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed.