TUT.BY

**TUT.BY** is a web portal from Minsk, Belarus, in Russian and Belarusian languages. It has been runned since 2000. It is a very big website in the country.

## Abstract

It is a website to read about the 2020 Belarusian protests and 2020 Belarusian presidential election, more. 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. The international organization Reporters Without Borders named it a cruel attack on the web portal. The USA together with more than fifty other countries and the EU asked the Belarusian government to stop such attacks.

## Founder

Yuri Zisser (1960–2020) made the website in October 2000. The website worked with digital media rights since January 2019.

## Problems

Journalist Katsyaryna Barysevich wrote an article about the death of Raman Bandarenka in 2020. She was arrested in Minsk on November 19, 2020. On March 2, 2021, she was sentenced to a half-year in prison and got a fine for that.

On May 18, 2021, the TUT.BY office and the houses of its main people were looked for. It was a result of the just opened TUT.BY tax evasion criminal case. 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. The Ministry of Information of Belarus made such punishment for "prohibited information" that the website has been having over it. One example of such information was named. It was information of BYSOL. BYSOL is a foundation that helps people who got punishments because of the 2020 Belarusian protests. At least 18 people who worked for TUT.BY were arrested on May 18, 2021.

As of May 25, 2021, 12 people were put in isolation centers, including the main editor Maryna Zolatava. As of May 25, 2021, three people, including the widow of Yuri Zisser Julia Charnyauskaya, were under a house arrest. 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. They named all of 15 people political prisoners.

On July 8, 2021, a part of journalists of TUT.BY that was free made the second website Zerkalo.io. They said that this domain name is going to be used until TUT.BY can work in Belarus again. Since July 8, 2021, the website Zerkalo.io can't be opened in Belarus. 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.

In June 2022, TUT BY MEDIA was declared extremist by a court in Minsk.

In March 2023, both Zolotova and Chekina were sentenced to 12 years in a general regime penal colony.

In June 2023, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus designated Zerkalo as an extremist formation.

## Awards

- (2021)

## Other websites

- savetutby.info
- zerkalo.io

## Infobox (website)

- **name**: TUT.BY
- **logo**: тут_бай_лого.png
- **logo size**: 236px
- **commercial**: Yes
- **type**: Internet portal
- **language**: Russian language, Russian, Belarusian language, Belarusian
- **registration**: Free
- **owner**: TUT BY MEDIA LLC
- **author**: Yuri Zisser
- **launch date**: October 2000
- **current status**: offline