Belarusian authorities recognize Tut.by and Zerkalo.io as extremist

The Belarusian court recognized the media resource Tut.by, which had previously been blocked and stripped of its media status, and its pages on social networks and messengers as extremist. About this edition reported in the Telegram channel. The court made a similar decision in relation to the news agency Zerkаlo.io, created by former employees of Tut.by.

“Now storage and distribution of these materials will entail administrative responsibility. Reading or viewing does not apply to this, ”Tut.by said in a message.

Press Secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus Olga Chemodanova reportedthat the court of the Tsentralny district of Minsk ruled to recognize Tut.by and its “analogues in social networks and messengers” as extremist. “The information resource, according to the conclusion of the expert commission, is a platform for propaganda of extremist activities aimed at inciting social hostility or discord, organizing and carrying out mass riots, as well as inciting political and ideological enmity,” she added.

Chemodanova clarified that the Internet resources Tut.by and Zerkаlo.io, as well as their counterparts in Telegram, Viber, Twitter, pages on social networks Instagram, Facebook, VKontakte, TikTok and mobile applications for smartphones, were included in the list of prohibited ones. According to her, now for the publication or repost of information from these resources, administrative responsibility and punishment, up to arrest, are provided.

On May 18, searches were carried out in the editorial office of Tut.by and regional offices, the documentation and portal servers were seized, and the office was sealed. Also, searches were carried out at the employees of Tut.by in a criminal case of tax evasion on an especially large scale. In the case, 15 employees of the portal and other companies were detained, including the general director of TUT BAY MEDIA LLC Lyudmila Chekina and the editor-in-chief of Tut.by Marina Zolotova. After the searches, the Tut.by domain was blocked.

In mid-June, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus announced an examination of the materials of the Tut.by portal, which found signs of extremism in them. In this regard, the department asked to recognize the information products of the portal and its social networks as extremist, writes RBC.

In the conclusion of the commission, it was said that the actions of Tut.by to provide information to the protests, to create an opportunity to make destructive appeals, harm the national interests of Belarus in the political, social, information spheres and, therefore, undermine the national security of the country.

According to the commission, the publications of the publication showed signs of “ridicule and insults, a negative assessment of the activities of Alexander Lukashenko, representatives of state authorities, certain groups of individuals identified on a professional basis”, as well as a strategy of discrediting such people, and groups of protesters opposed the authorities, including number of security officials, employees of the CEC and others.

The editorial board of the portal stated that the recognition of its materials as extremist could “destroy the work of journalists and the entire company.” “This is, in fact, an attempt to erase the history of the country, which Tut.by journalists have been writing for 20 years. And everything said and written by the portal should be declared illegal for discussion and dissemination, ”the statement said.

At the end of June Tut.by deleted social media posts for 2020 and the first six months of 2021. “We removed posts because of the case of ‘extremism’ on our social networks and website. We did this for the safety of our readers and employees, ”the editorial office said.

At the beginning of July 2021, the former members of the Tut.by team who remained at large launched new media Zerkalo.io. Its editorial office is located outside Belarus. An hour after the launch of Zerkalo.io, access to the resource in the country was blocked, writes Jellyfish.

Earlier in Belarus, the TV channel “Belsat” and the sports website were recognized as extremist Tribuna.com… Dozens of other independent media outlets in the country are blocked. In the editors of a number of publications searched, editor-in-chief and some employees of the Belarusian-language media “Our field” detained.

The Tut.by portal has been operating since 2000 and was the largest Belarusian news outlet. He covered the protests that began after the presidential elections in Belarus in August 2020. Portal employees were detained several times. The journalists said that the security forces smashed cameras and confiscated the cards with the footage. In the fall, Tut.by was deprived of its media status, but it continued to work as an Internet resource.