Five other employees of TUT.BY were sued for "the BelTA case"

Criminal proceedings against the "BELTA" case against five TUT.BY employees, including editors Galina Ulasik, Anna Kaltygina and Dmitry Bobrik, have been dropped.

Today, their requests for closure of the criminal proceedings have been satisfied on the basis of the art. 86 of the Criminal Code (exemption from criminal liability with the involvement of a person with administrative responsibility). All the publishers paid the damages (from 3,000 to 17,000 rubles) and paid administrative fines of 30 base units (735 rubles). Now, in "BelTA case", they pbad for witnesses. A written commitment was revoked, the ban on leaving the country was lifted.

Marina Zolotova, editor-in-chief of the portal, and Anna Yermachenok, editor-in-chief, are accused in a criminal case. Marina Zolotova charged under Part 2 of Art. 425 of the Criminal Code of Belarus (official inaction). Sanctions under this article include a fine of five years imprisonment.

Also on November 27, naviny.by said that the criminal proceedings against another person involved in this case, the publisher of the Belarusian website and Market newspaper, Alexei Zhukov, have been abandoned. He paid an administrative fine of 30 bases.

On Monday, 26 November, criminal proceedings against TUT.BY editor-in-chief Uliana Boboed and BelaPAN observer Tatyana Korovenkova were dropped. At the end of last week, Deutsche Welle correspondent, Pavel Bykovsky, and Realt.by portal publisher, Vladislav Kuletsky, were released from any criminal responsibility.

In total, 15 editors and journalists were involved in the "BelTA case". They were charged under Part 2 of the art. 349 "Unauthorized access to computer information." It appears from the documents that the accused would have "deliberately out of reach of a mercenary and other personal interests unauthorized access to computer information stored in a computer system and on the Republican network. EU BelTA, accompanied by a violation of the protection system, causing by negligence other significant damage ".

Recall that on August 7, the offices of TUT.BY and BelaPAN were searched and detained. Marina Zolotova, editor-in-chief of TUT.BY, Anna Kaltygina, portal editors, Galina Ulasik and Anna Yermachenok, editor-in-chief of BelaPAN Irina Levshina and observer of the international news agency Tatyana Korovenkova, correspondent for Deutsche Welle Pavel Bykovsky, and editor-in-chief of Belarusians website »Alexey Zhukov. They all spent several days at the Akrestin Temporary Detention Center. On August 27, most of the suspects were banned from leaving the country.

Journalists and editors have supported the European Union, the Council of Europe, the United States and international human rights organizations.