Belarusian Journalist Maryna Zolatava Released After More Than Four Years in Prison

Maryna Zolatava has been detained twice in separate cases: first on August 7, 2018, and a second time in May 2021.

Belarus: Maryna Zolatava, editor-in-chief of Belarus's largest portal Tut.by, is among the group of political prisoners who were released on December 13, 2025. She had been imprisoned since 2021. Belarus ranks 166th out of 180 countries in the current Press Freedom Index.

In March 2023, Zolatava was sentenced to 12 years in a general-regime penal colony. She served her sentence in women's correctional colony No. 4 in Gomel.

Maryna Zolatava was accused of "aiding and abetting tax evasion, inciting social hatred and discord, and disseminating materials aimed at undermining Belarus's national security." The Ministry of Internal Affairs and the KGB also included Maryna Zolatava on their lists of "extremists" and "terrorists."

75% women journalists are victims of online violence, one in four receives physical or death threats: UNESCO #journalists #Press #Womenjournalists #UNESCO https://t.co/jrqVCewViy

— VOiCE OF MEDIA (@voiceofmedia1) November 2, 2025

Maryna Zolatava was detained on May 18, 2021, allegedly because Zolatava and her colleague, Tut.by managing director Lyudmila Chekina, had disseminated "content inciting actions that undermine Belarus's national security."

Along with Zolatava, Lyudmila Chekina, director of LLC "Tut Bay Media," Olga Loyka, editor of the economics and politics department, correspondent Elena Tokacheva, and legal advisor Katsiaryna Tkachenka were also prosecuted. Before the trial, Tokacheva, Loyka, and Tkachenka left the country.

Maryna Zolatava was born on November 6, 1977, in Minsk. After graduating from the Philological Faculty of BSU, she studied at the postgraduate school of the Institute of Linguistics of the National Academy of Sciences. She worked at the State Institute of Science Problems, as well as at the BelPAN news agency. 

In 2004, Marina joinied Tut.by, after which the website transformed into a major portal and became the most influential Belarusian resource, whose opinion the authorities had to consider and to which they had to react.

According to reports from the Belarusian exiled media outlet Zerkalo and several international media outlets, immediately after their release, all 123 people were sent out of Belarus, primarily to Ukraine.