Volha Loika

Affiliated media: Tut.by , Editor

Incident date: April 26, 2025

Attack type:

• Prosecution for extremism, links with terrorists, inciting hatred, high treason, calling for the overthrow of the constitutional order, rehabilitation of Nazism (2)

Who attacked: Authorities

Source: Belarusian Association of Journalists

Location: Belarus, Minsk

Additional information:

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus has included former chief editor of the political-economic section of the news portal Tut.by, Volha Loika, in the list of “persons involved in extremist activities.” It is noted that a “sentence has entered into legal force” against her, and the journalist is “serving her punishment.” In fact, she left Belarus in 2022 after being released from pre-trial detention. The case against former Tut.by employees began on February 4, 2025, in absentia and in a closed format—the verdict is unknown. In the “list of extremists” concerning Volha Loika, Part 3 of Article 130 (“Incitement of racial, national, religious, or other social hatred”) and Part 3 of Article 361 (“Calls to impose restrictive measures (sanctions) or to take other actions aimed at harming national security”) of the Criminal Code of Belarus are mentioned. Such articles, after 2020, are usually applied to individuals persecuted for political reasons.