Type of site | Internet portal |
---|---|
Available in | Russian, Belarusian |
Owner | TUT BY MEDIA LLC |
Created by | Yuri Zisser |
URL | tut |
Commercial | Yes |
Registration | Free |
Launched | October 2000 |
Current status | offline |
TUT.BY is a web portal from Minsk, Belarus, in Russian and Belarusian languages.[1] It has been runned since 2000.[1] It is a very big website in the country.[1]
It is a website to read about the 2020 Belarusian protests and 2020 Belarusian presidential election, more.[1] Because of that, at the end of September 2020, the Ministry of Information of Belarus stopped the TUT.BY’s media rights for three months from October 1.[1] The international organization Reporters Without Borders named it a cruel attack on the web portal.[2] The USA together with more than fifty other countries and the EU asked the Belarusian government to stop such attacks.[3][4]
Yuri Zisser (1960–2020) made the website in October 2000.[5] The website worked with digital media rights since January 2019.[5]
Journalist Katsyaryna Barysevich wrote an article about the death of Raman Bandarenka in 2020.[6] She was arrested in Minsk on November 19, 2020.[6] On March 2, 2021, she was sentenced to a half-year in prison and got a fine for that.[7]
On May 18, 2021, the TUT.BY office and the houses of its main people were looked for.[8] It was a result of the just opened TUT.BY tax evasion criminal case.[9] Since that day, the domain name was stopped working, copies of the TUT.BY website and the E-mail system of TUT.BY can't be opened.[8] The Ministry of Information of Belarus made such punishment for "prohibited information" that the website has been having over it.[10] One example of such information was named.[10] It was information of BYSOL.[10] BYSOL is a foundation that helps people who got punishments because of the 2020 Belarusian protests.[10] At least 18 people who worked for TUT.BY were arrested on May 18, 2021.[8]
As of May 25, 2021, 12 people were put in isolation centers, including the main editor Maryna Zolatava.[11] As of May 25, 2021, three people, including the widow of Yuri Zisser Julia Charnyauskaya, were under a house arrest.[11] On May 25, 2021, nine organizations (the Viasna Human Rights Centre, the Belarusian Association of Journalists, the Belarusian Helsinki Committee and others) made a statement together.[11] They named all of 15 people political prisoners.[11]
On July 8, 2021, a part of journalists of TUT.BY that was free made the second website Zerkalo.io.[12] They said that this domain name is going to be used until TUT.BY can work in Belarus again.[12] Since July 8, 2021, the website Zerkalo.io can't be opened in Belarus.[13] In August, the Central District court of Minsk recognized both the new and the old projects and their content as extremist materials, which makes its distribution a misdemeanor offense in Belarus.[14]
In June 2022, TUT BY MEDIA was declared extremist by a court in Minsk.[15]
In March 2023, both Zolotova and Chekina were sentenced to 12 years in a general regime penal colony.[16]
In June 2023, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus designated Zerkalo as an extremist formation.[17]