International Press Institute condemns criminal action against TUT.BY journalists

The Inter­na­tion­al Press Insti­tute (IPI) con­demns the crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings opened by a court today in Min­sk against five edi­tors and jour­nal­ists at Belaru­sian media out­let Tut.by. IPI and our glob­al net­work denounce this glar­ing case of per­se­cu­tion of jour­nal­ists at the now-banned inde­pen­dent media out­let and demand their imme­di­ate release.

On Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 9, pro­ceed­ings opened against the five jour­nal­ists, who stand accused of tax eva­sion, incite­ment to hatred, and endan­ger­ing the nation­al secu­ri­ty of Belarus. Among the five sus­pects accused, three have since man­aged to flee the coun­try. They are Vol­ha Loy­ka, Ale­na Talk­a­che­va and Kat­siary­na Tkachen­ka. How­ev­er, Tut.by Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Lyud­mi­la Chek­ina and Edi­tor-in-Chief Mary­na Zolata­va remain under arrest and face up to 12 years in prison. The details of the accu­sa­tions against them remain unknown due to the court’s deci­sion to con­sid­er the case in a closed ses­sion.

Fol­low­ing the con­test­ed re-elec­tion of Alexan­der Lukashenko in 2020, pro-gov­ern­ment media accused Tut.by, an inde­pen­dent out­let which was Belarus’s most pop­u­lar news por­tal, of destruc­tive activ­i­ty aimed at under­min­ing the inter­ests of Belarus.

Fol­low­ing this smear cam­paign, author­i­ties detained 15 Tut.by jour­nal­ists and con­trib­u­tors in May 2021 in Min­sk and in oth­er major cities of Belarus. On the same day, the State Com­mit­tee of Con­trol of Belarus accused Tut.by of tax fraud. Accord­ing to author­i­ties, the media out­let took advan­tage of tax breaks by reg­is­ter­ing at the Min­sk High Tech­nol­o­gy Park but engaged in activ­i­ties not per­mit­ted by the park’s reg­u­la­tions.

It is not clear why, giv­en the accu­sa­tions, author­i­ties only ini­ti­at­ed pro­ceed­ings against Tut.by in 2021, as the media was reg­is­tered sev­er­al years ear­li­er and was wide­ly known in Belarus as being pri­mar­i­ly an inde­pen­dent news por­tal.

“The tim­ing of these absurd accu­sa­tions, at the height of Alexan­der Lukashenko’s cam­paign of repres­sion against jour­nal­ists and civ­il soci­ety, are a clear sign that the case against Tut.by is polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed”, said IPI Deputy Direc­tor Scott Grif­f­en. “We demand that Belaru­sian author­i­ties imme­di­ate­ly release Lyud­mi­la Chek­ina and Mary­na Zolata­va, and drop charges against Vol­ha Loy­ka, Ale­na Talk­a­che­va, and Kat­siary­na Tkachen­ka.”

Sur­re­al­is­tic accu­sa­tions

Fol­low­ing 19 months of pre-tri­al inves­ti­ga­tion, Belaru­sian pros­e­cu­tors accused Chek­ina, Zolata­va, Loy­ka, Talk­a­che­va, and Tkachen­ka of vio­lat­ing sev­er­al arti­cles of the country’s crim­i­nal code, includ­ing:

• Arti­cle 342.1 (active par­tic­i­pa­tion in group activ­i­ties seri­ous­ly vio­lat­ing pub­lic order), pun­ished by up to four years in prison;

• Arti­cle 361.3 (direct­ing appeals aimed at endan­ger­ing the nation­al secu­ri­ty of the Repub­lic of Belarus, made through media or online), pun­ished by up to five years in prison;

• Arti­cle 243.2 (eva­sion of tax­es of an excep­tion­al­ly high amount), pun­ished by up to sev­en years of prison);

• Arti­cle 130.3 (activ­i­ties com­mit­ted in a group aimed at incit­ing hatred against racial, eth­nic, reli­gious, lin­guis­tic or oth­er social groups), pun­ished by up to 12 years in prison.

Pri­or to these accu­sa­tions and fol­low­ing the forced clo­sure of Tut.by by Belaru­sian author­i­ties, a group of for­mer Tut.by con­trib­u­tors cre­at­ed a new inde­pen­dent online media out­let, Zerkalo.io. In a state­ment pub­lished on the day before the open­ing of the case against their col­leagues in Min­sk, they termed their accu­sa­tions “[a] sur­re­al­is­tic [sit­u­a­tion], which can be seen as [the regime’s] last jump into an alter­na­tive real­i­ty, where real news is an absolute evil.”

“Among our team we do not have the small­est doubt that the Tut.by case was fal­si­fied in all its pieces, and that it appeared only because the regime is afraid of jour­nal­ists. It is afraid of real news. We believe that the Tut.by col­lab­o­ra­tors should be released [imme­di­ate­ly] in court”, wrote Zerkalo.io on its web­site.

Accord­ing to the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, there are cur­rent­ly 33 jour­nal­ists behind bars in the coun­try of nine mil­lion. Belarus end­ed 2022 jail­ing yet anoth­er media work­er, Larysa Shchyrako­va, and main­tained its posi­tion as one of the worst coun­tries in the world for jour­nal­ists to freely prac­tice their pro­fes­sion.