TUT.BY editor Maryna Zolatava indignant over ‘trivial hacking’ accusations

TUT.by editor-in-chief Maryna Zolatava has reacted to the statement made by a representative of the Investigation Committee who said that there was no politics in ‘the BelTA case’ since it was ‘trivial hacking’. That stance was confirmed in a press release published by the Investigation Committee shortly afterwards. Belarus was giving account on human rights observation at a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. When asked by the council members, Investigation Committee's Halina Suzdaltsava noted that ‘the BelTA case’ did exist and that the suspects in this case could be subjected to criminal prosecution.

Maryna writes that the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus contains no definition of 'hacking.' Therefore, it has nothing to do with Article 349 (2) of the Criminal Code. Furthermore, suspects cannot be arrested on suspicion of this offence. However, they were detained. Some of the detainees were held in a detention center for several nights.

The TUT.BY editor-in-chief stresses that she has never logged in to BelTA’s news feed using other people’s passwords. No BelTA news had ever appeared on the website of TUT.by before it was available in the public domain. TUT.by has never published any news that were accessible only in the BelTA’s paid news feed, she said.