TUT.BY employees are political prisoners. Joint statement by Belarusian human rights organizations

Joint state­ment by Belaru­sian human rights orga­ni­za­tions

Min­sk – May 25, 2021

On May 18, the Depart­ment for Finan­cial Inves­ti­ga­tions searched the edi­to­r­i­al office, the local offices, as well as the homes of jour­nal­ists and edi­tors of the most pop­u­lar Belaru­sian Inter­net por­tal TUT.BY. The edi­to­r­i­al offices of TUT.BY’s sub-divi­sions, AV.BY and RABOTA.BY, were also raid­ed. Almost simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, on the basis of a report from the Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al’s Office, the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion blocked access to the Inter­net resource tut.by and its scraper sites.

On the same day, the Depart­ment for Finan­cial Inves­ti­ga­tions of the State Con­trol Com­mit­tee said that it opened a crim­i­nal case against offi­cials of TUT.BY MEDIA LLC on the grounds of a crime under Part 2 of Arti­cle 243 of the Crim­i­nal Code of the Repub­lic of Belarus (eva­sion of tax­es and fees of espe­cial­ly large amount).

We, the under­signed orga­ni­za­tions, con­sid­er these facts to be a con­tin­u­a­tion of the attack on free­dom of speech. The author­i­ties’ ref­er­ences to eco­nom­ic vio­la­tions, which alleged­ly led to the outlet’s per­se­cu­tion, have been active­ly used for many years to jus­ti­fy repres­sive mea­sures against human rights defend­ers, the media, and inde­pen­dent trade unions. In recent years, Ales Biali­ats­ki, chair­man of the Human Rights Cen­ter “Vias­na”, Henadz Fia­dyn­ich, leader of the inde­pen­dent trade union REP, Ales Lipai, head of the Bela­pan news agency, and oth­ers have been pros­e­cut­ed on polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed charges of tax eva­sion in Belarus.

This is not the first attempt to put pres­sure on the largest and most pop­u­lar Belaru­sian infor­ma­tion por­tal. In August 2018, sev­er­al TUT.BY edi­tors were pros­e­cut­ed in the so-called “BelTA case”, and in ear­ly 2019, the edi­tor-in-chief, Mary­na Zolata­va, was con­vict­ed in this case. At the end of 2020, TUT.BY was stripped of its cre­den­tials as a media out­let, and offi­cials repeat­ed­ly threat­ened to block its activ­i­ties.

We believe that these actions against the employ­ees of the largest and most pop­u­lar infor­ma­tion resource in the coun­try are a con­tin­u­a­tion of the pur­pose­ful pol­i­cy of the author­i­ties to lim­it the dis­sem­i­na­tion of uncen­sored infor­ma­tion in the coun­try. After the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, dozens of socio-polit­i­cal and media sites were blocked in Belarus, and a num­ber of print media were forced to stop pub­lish­ing.

In the case of TUT.BY, it is known that the fol­low­ing per­sons remain in deten­tion:

Liud­mi­la Chek­ina, gen­er­al direc­tor;

Mary­na Zolata­va, edi­tor-in-chief;

Vol­ha Loi­ka, edi­tor;

Iry­na Rybal­ka, deputy direc­tor;

Ale­na Talk­a­cho­va, jour­nal­ist;

Anzhela Asad, chief accoun­tant;

Maryia Novik, deputy chief accoun­tant;

Ala Lap­at­ka, chief engi­neer;

Ali­ak­san­dr Daine­ka, deputy gen­er­al direc­tor for tech­ni­cal affairs;

Andrei Audzeyeu, man­ag­er;

Siarhei Paval­ishau, hoster.by direc­tor;

Darya Danila­va, direc­tor of Rock­et Data and TAM.BY.

Under house arrest in this case are:

Yuliya Char­ni­auskaya, wid­ow of TUT.BY founder Yury Ziss­er;

Kat­siary­na Tkachen­ka, TUT.BY lawyer;

Iry­na Kast­si­uchen­ka, for­mer lawyer of TUT.BY.

Giv­en these cir­cum­stances, we con­clude that the real grounds for the crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of Liud­mi­la Chek­ina, Mary­na Zolata­va, Vol­ha Loi­ka, Iry­na Rybal­ka, Ale­na Talk­a­cho­va, Anzhela Asad, Maryia Novik, Ala Lap­at­ka, Ali­ak­san­dr Daine­ka, Andrei Audzeyeu, Siarhei Paval­ishau, Darya Danila­va, Yuliya Char­ni­auskaya, Kat­siary­na Tkachen­ka and Iry­na Kast­si­uchen­ka are polit­i­cal motives aimed at stop­ping or chang­ing the nature of their pub­lic activ­i­ties for legit­i­mate pur­pos­es as part of the TUT.BY por­tal in con­nec­tion with the non­vi­o­lent exer­cise of free­dom of expres­sion and dis­sem­i­na­tion of infor­ma­tion.

Based on this and guid­ed by para­graphs 2.1, 3.1 a) of the Guide­lines on the Def­i­n­i­tion of Polit­i­cal Pris­on­ers, adopt­ed at the III Belaru­sian Human Rights Forum, we, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Belaru­sian human rights orga­ni­za­tions, declare Liud­mi­la Chek­ina, Mary­na Zolata­va, Vol­ha Loi­ka, Iry­na Rybal­ka, Ale­na Talk­a­cho­va, Anzhela Asad, Maryia Novik, Ala Lap­at­ka, Ali­ak­san­dr Daine­ka, Andrei Audzeyeu, Siarhei Paval­ishau, Darya Danila­va, Yuliya Char­ni­auskaya, Kat­siary­na Tkachen­ka and Iry­na Kast­si­uchen­ka to be polit­i­cal pris­on­ers and call to:

• imme­di­ate­ly release Lyud­mi­la Liud­mi­la Chek­ina, Mary­na Zolata­va, Vol­ha Loi­ka, Iry­na Rybal­ka, Ale­na Talk­a­cho­va, Anzhela Asad, Maryia Novik, Ala Lap­at­ka, Ali­ak­san­dr Daine­ka, Andrei Audzeyeu, Siarhei Paval­ishau, and Darya Danila­va from cus­tody, and Yuliya Char­ni­auskaya, Kat­siary­na Tkachen­ka and Iry­na Kast­si­uchen­ka from house arrest;
• refrain from using the meth­ods of crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion as an instru­ment of pres­sure on free­dom of expres­sion;
• imme­di­ate­ly put an end to repres­sion and release all polit­i­cal pris­on­ers.

Human Rights Cen­ter “Vias­na”

Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists

PEN Belarus

Legal Ini­tia­tive

Cen­ter for Legal Trans­for­ma­tion (Lawtrend)

Human Con­stan­ta

FORB Ini­tia­tive

Belaru­sian Doc­u­men­ta­tion Cen­ter