Maryna Zolatava: “I am calm, prepared and hope for the better”
Maryna Zolatava
“I am calm, prepared and hope for the better,” editor-in-chief of tut.by Maryna Zolatava told Euroradio journalist Zmitser Lukashuk before the trial.
Maryna Zolatava is standing trial on charges of 'inaction by an official' in the so-called ‘BELTA case’. Six months ago, more than a dozen journalists and editors from several media outlets were detained in connection with the case. They were charged with unauthorized access to the paid news feed of the state news agency BELTA. Their criminal cases were changed into administrative cases later. All of them paid fines between several hundred and severak thousand US dollars.
Only Maryna Zolatava’s case has remained criminal. Allegedly, she knew about her subordinates accessing BELTA’s paid news feed illegally and did not stop them.
"Why has the case been stared? I think that there are other reasons besides BELTA. One of the reasons is the fact that online news outlets are not controlled by the state. While the television has been under the authorities’ control for a long time, the Internet still is not," Zolatava said.
When asked by the Euroradio reporter if she regretted doing something in the past, Zolatava said: "I have things to regret about and I will speak about it during the hearing."
