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ARTICLE 19 is appalled by the latest crackdown on TUT.BY, one of the most popular internet news outlets in Belarus. On 18 May 2021, access to the website was blocked, including via VPN. Law enforcement agents searched TUT.BY’s offices of the outlet and a criminal case has been opened against it for “tax evasion”. Additionally, a number of people related to the outlet have been detained. 

At least 11 TUT.BY employees remain in detention a day after security forces searched the company’s offices and homes of its staff in a criminal investigation of suspected tax evasion. The whereabouts of many of them were unknown until late at night on 18 May.

Journalist Alexander Burakou, who collaborates with Deutsche Welle, received 20 days of administrative arrest for alleged "repeated participation in an unauthorized event within a year". Burakou was detained on May 12 near Mahiliou regional court building. Uladzimir Laptsevich, reporter of 6tv.by received a similar sentence — 20 days of arrest.

Lukashenko‘s regime is intensifying its crackdown on Belarusian journalists and citizens. In the last few days, the police have made several administrative arrests, bringing the number of journalists deprived of their freedom to 16.

On 14 May, the Oktyabrsky District Court of Minsk begins to consider the “case of students” who were detained last November and accused of organizing and preparing actions that grossly violate public order. There are 12 accused in total: ten students from different Minsk universities, a medical graduate and a teacher at BSUIR. For more than six months they have been in jail. By the beginning of the first session, more than a hundred people had come to the courthouse, but only some of them managed to get inside. Journalists of independent media and even some relatives of the accused had to wait outside. Police asked the crowd to disperse, after which the arrests took place.

On Thursday. freelance photographer Tatsyana Kapitonava was detained at Startup Family coworking in Minsk, the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) reports.

The Mahiliou journalists reporting on the trial of opposition activists Seviarynets, Afnahel and others to remain in jail until their own hearing.