Rally against the results of the presidential election of Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk, Belarus, November 2, 2020. Stringer. /REUTERS
A Minsk court sentenced two leaders of the independent news site Tut.by to twelve years in prison on Friday, in the midst of a wave of repression orchestrated in Belarus by the regime of Alexander Lukashenko. According to the specialized NGO Viasna, the editor-in-chief of the site Marina Zolotova, 45, and its general manager Lioudmila Tchekina, 54, were sentenced after a closed trial that lasted more than two months.
“The verdict targeting our colleagues is a cruel revenge for having transmitted with (their media) Tut.by the truth to Belarusians“Reacted the Belarusian Association of Journalists, in a press release. Marina Zolotova and Lioudmila Tchekina were notably accused of tax evasion and incitement to social hatred, charges qualified as “absurdby the NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF). The two women appeared at the verdict in the glass cage reserved for the defendants, smiling shyly, according to images published Friday by state media Belta. They had been arrested in May 2021 and have since been behind bars.
Two journalists and a lawyer from Tut.by, who fled Belarus, are also on trial separately. Friday’s sentence is emblematic of the ruthless repression led by Alexander Lukashenko against any criticism of his regime, since a vast protest movement which made him falter in 2020. For weeks, the site Tut.by had covered this protest which gathered tens of thousands of people in the streets of Minsk and other cities to denounce the highly disputed re-election of Alexander Lukashenko, in power for three decades.
“Proud of you”
Tut.by had been called “extremistby the authorities and blocked in Belarus in 2021. But several of its journalists who left Belarus have relaunched the site under a new name, Zerkalo (“mirror“, in Russian). “We are proud of you. Your integrity and your perseverance are an example for all of us“, Zerkalo journalists said in a message published on their site on Friday, before the verdict. “We are proud to continue your work, giving Belarusians real information“, they added.
The regime wants to “kill honest journalism”
The leader of the Belarusian opposition in exile, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, denounced a “another attempt to kill honest journalism» after the sentencing in Belarus to 12 years in prison of two leaders of an independent media, Marina Zolotova and Lioudmila Tchekina. “It’s a revenge against two beautiful women and two great professionals (…) I have absolutely no doubt that their values (…) will win and they will find freedom. And until the world can hear them, we will be their voices“said Ms. Tikhanovskaïa in a press release.
Several opponents and leading civil society figures have been sentenced to heavy prison terms in recent months. At the beginning of March, the leader of the opposition in exile, Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa, was thus sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison, at the end of a trial which she described as “prank call» Judicial. A few days earlier, activist Ales Bialiatski, co-winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize and figure of the democracy movement in Belarus where he is still, had been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
According to the Belarusian human rights organization Viasna, Belarus had 1,461 political prisoners as of March 1. Westerners imposed heavy sanctions in Belarus for the crackdown on the 2020 protests, but Mr Lukashenko’s regime still enjoys Moscow’s unwavering support.