TUT.BY media outlet

Date

Form of repres­sion

Descrip­tion

7 August 2020

Writ­ten warn­ing

The Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion issued a writ­ten warn­ing to OOO TUT.BY MEDIA for dis­trib­ut­ing «false infor­ma­tion that may harm state or pub­lic inter­ests.»

On 5 August, TUT.BY media out­let pub­lished the arti­cle «7 times more vot­ers and ‘secret’ vot­ing results reports. What vio­la­tions did the observers note and what did the CEC say?» in which vio­la­tions reg­is­tered by observers were cit­ed. The text also con­tained a com­men­tary by CEC.

The Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion stat­ed that some infor­ma­tion in the arti­cle (relat­ed to the time an observ­er spent at a polling sta­tion) is not true.

7 Sep­tem­ber 2020

Writ­ten warn­ing

The Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion issued a sec­ond writ­ten warn­ing to OOO TUT.BY MEDIA for dis­trib­ut­ing «false infor­ma­tion that may harm state or pub­lic inter­ests.»

On 25 August 2020, the FINANCE.TUT.BY sec­tion fea­tured the arti­cle «The State Con­trol Com­mit­tee will be able to pay large bonus­es to employ­ees who approve them­selves in high-pro­file cas­es.» The author made a mis­take in the arti­cle (the bonus amounts were incor­rect).

TUT.BY edi­to­r­i­al team apol­o­gized for the mis­take. The arti­cle was prompt­ly cor­rect­ed.

9 Sep­tem­ber 2020

Writ­ten warn­ing

The Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion issued a third writ­ten warn­ing to OOO TUT.BY MEDIA for the arti­cle «Law enforce­ment came to TUT.BY edi­tor’s home. A crim­i­nal case on mass riots opened against her daugh­ter.»

The Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion indi­cat­ed that no crim­i­nal case had been ini­ti­at­ed against Vale­ria Ulasik, and the search was car­ried out «to ver­i­fy the infor­ma­tion received about her involve­ment in orga­niz­ing mass riots in Min­sk.»

15 Sep­tem­ber 2020

Writ­ten warn­ing

The Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion issued a third writ­ten warn­ing to OOO TUT.BY MEDIA for the arti­cle «Belaru­sian cus­toms office asked to con­firm the absence of calls to over­throw the gov­ern­ment in the Har­ry Pot­ter book.»

Accord­ing to the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion, the infor­ma­tion that «at the request of the cus­toms office, the pub­lish­ing house shall pro­vide proof that the book con­tains no calls to over­throw the cur­rent gov­ern­ment» is untrue and can harm state inter­ests.

29 Sep­tem­ber 2020

Sus­pen­sion of mass media (online media) pub­liсa­tion

Fol­low­ing the order of Min­is­ter of Infor­ma­tion Ihar Lut­s­ki, the pub­li­ca­tion of TUT.BY online media was sus­pend­ed from 1 Octo­ber to 30 Decem­ber 2020.

12 Novem­ber 2020

Writ­ten warn­ing

The Supreme Court, at the claim of OOO TUT.BY MEDIA to the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion, inval­i­dat­ed 1 of 3 writ­ten warn­ings (the one of 9 Sep­tem­ber 2020).

Oth­er writ­ten warn­ings were rec­og­nized by the court as law­ful.

19 Jan­u­ary 2021

Ter­mi­na­tion of mass media (online media) pub­liсa­tion

On 18 Sep­tem­ber 2020, the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion filed a state­ment of claim to the Min­sk City Eco­nom­ic Court against OOO TUT.BY MEDIA for ter­mi­na­tion of TUT.BY online media pub­li­ca­tion.

The grounds for the suit were «sev­er­al writ­ten warn­ings issued fol­low­ing the vio­la­tion of the Law on Mass Media by the TUT.BY online media out­let. The warn­ings con­cerned the mate­ri­als of the news out­let, which, accord­ing to the agency, «spread inac­cu­rate infor­ma­tion caus­ing harm to the state and pub­lic inter­ests.»

On 3 Decem­ber 2020, the Min­sk City Eco­nom­ic Court sat­is­fied the claim in full.

On 19 Jan­u­ary 2021, the court of appeal dis­missed OOO TUT.BY MEDI­A’s com­plaint. The court’s deci­sion to ter­mi­nate the pub­li­ca­tion of TUT.BY online media has entered into legal force.

The ter­mi­na­tion of the online media pub­li­ca­tion essen­tial­ly meant the depri­va­tion of the sta­tus of the media, but the TUT.BY media out­let con­tin­ued its work all that time.

18 May 2021

Crim­i­nal case

Depart­ment of Finan­cial Inves­ti­ga­tions of the State Con­trol Com­mit­tee start­ed a crim­i­nal case against OOO TUT.BY MEDIA exec­u­tives under Part 2 Arti­cle 243 of the Crim­i­nal Code (grand tax eva­sion).

It was stat­ed that «as a result of unwar­rant­ed use by OOO TUT.BY MEDIA of gov­ern­ment incen­tive pro­vid­ed to the High Tech Park res­i­dents, seri­ous dam­age was caused to the state.»

18 May 2021

Search of the edi­to­r­i­al office

With­in the crim­i­nal case against OOO TUT.BY MEDIA man­age­ment under Part 2 Arti­cle 243 of the Crim­i­nal Code (grand tax eva­sion), the finan­cial inves­tiga­tive bod­ies of the State Con­trol Com­mit­tee «car­ried out urgent inves­tiga­tive and oth­er legal pro­ceed­ings to estab­lish all the cir­cum­stances and per­sons involved in the unlaw­ful activ­i­ty.»

The TUT.BY media offices in Min­sk, Brest, Homel, Vit­seb­sk, Mahilou, and Hrod­na, as well as homes of some of its staff, were searched. The Min­sk office was searched until late in the night.

15 cur­rent and for­mer TUT.BY staff mem­bers were arrest­ed and put in a pre-tri­al deten­tion cen­ter:

• Lud­mi­la Chek­ina, TUT.BY CEO
• Mary­na Zolata­va, edi­tor-in-chief
• Vol­ha Loi­ka, edi­tor-in-chief of the polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic news block
• Ale­na Talk­a­cho­va, Mon­ey and Author­i­ties sec­tion jour­nal­ist
• Anzhela Asad, accoun­tant
• Iry­na Rybal­ka, assis­tant direc­tor for gen­er­al issues
• Maria Novik, deputy chief accoun­tant
• Ala Lap­at­ka, chief oper­at­ing offi­cer
• Ali­ak­san­dr Daine­ka, assis­tant direc­tor for tech­ni­cal issues
• Andrei Audzieyeu, Pub­lish­er Box man­ag­er
• Siarhei Paval­ishau, Hoster.by CEO
• Daria Danila­va, TAM.BY project man­ag­er
• Kat­siary­na Tkachen­ka, TUT.BY legal advis­er
• Iry­na Kast­si­uchen­ka, ex-TUT.BY legal advis­er
• Yulia Char­ni­auskaya, wid­ow of the TUT.BY founder Yury Zis­er

As of 28 June 2022, for­mer TUT.BY CEO Lud­mi­la Chek­ina, ex-edi­tor-in-chief Mary­na Zolata­va, and jour­nal­ist Ale­na Talk­a­cho­va remain in cus­tody in this case.

18 May 2021

Web­site block­ing

Accord­ing to the web­site of the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion, «fol­low­ing a notice from the Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor’s Office, the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion decid­ed to restrict access to Tut.by inter­net resource and its copies.»

«Numer­ous vio­la­tions of the Law on Mass Media when it comes to post­ing pro­hib­it­ed infor­ma­tion» were named as the rea­son. It was relat­ed to mate­ri­als that con­tained «infor­ma­tion on behalf of the unreg­is­tered BYSOL Foun­da­tion.»

18 May 2021

Seizure of equip­ment

Kiryl Val­oshyn, co-founder of the TUT.BY media out­let, said at a press con­fer­ence on 21 May 2021 that so far it’s impos­si­ble to resume the oper­a­tion of the out­let as a mir­ror site under a dif­fer­ent URL.

«The restric­tion of access to our servers looks like an ille­gal takeover seizure,» he said. Mr. Val­oshyn assumes that the servers used to host TUT.BY were seized by law enforce­ment offi­cers dur­ing the search.

13 August 2021

Declar­ing con­tent extrem­ist

On 3 June 2021, the Tsen­tral­ny Dis­trict Court of Min­sk, hav­ing con­sid­ered the peti­tion of the Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs, rec­og­nized the TUT.BY con­tent, social media, mes­sen­ger ser­vices, as well as logos (TUT.BY dig­i­tal char­ac­ters) as extrem­ist.

7 Octo­ber 2021

Crim­i­nal case

The Main Inves­tiga­tive Depart­ment of the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee opened a crim­i­nal case against OOO TUT.BY MEDIA exec­u­tives and staff and oth­er per­sons under part 3 of arti­cle 130 of the Crim­i­nal Code (incite­ment of racial, nation­al, reli­gious, or oth­er social hatred or dis­cord com­mit­ted by a group of per­sons).

14 June 2022

Recog­ni­tion as an extrem­ist orga­ni­za­tion

On 14 June 2022, OOO TUT.BY MEDIA was judi­cial­ly rec­og­nized as an extrem­ist orga­ni­za­tion by the Min­sk City Eco­nom­ic Court. TUT.BY MEDIA work and the use of the out­let’s sym­bols and emblems were for­bid­den on the ter­ri­to­ry of the Repub­lic of Belarus, and the orga­ni­za­tion was liq­ui­dat­ed.