Among the political prisoners freed is Liudmila Chekina, CEO of TUT.BY. In a politically motivated case she received 12 years in a colony — for refusing to abandon her principles and doing her job honestly. Dictator Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s regime tried to break a newsroom and a person. Today she is free.

Five years they took from her

Chekina was detained on 18 May 2021 — the day TUT.BY was crushed. Colleagues were hit too; the site was blocked; the outlet was branded “extremist.” The investigation lasted about 20 months: she and editor-in-chief Maryna Zolatava spent almost all of that time in Pre-Trial Detention Center No. 1 in Minsk.

In October 2022 the KGB put Liudmila Chekina on the list of people “involved in terrorist activity” — together with Zolatava. That is how the regime prefers to brand journalism. On 17 March 2023 judge Valyantsina Zenkevich handed down the verdict: 12 years in a general-regime colony and a fine. Chekina served her term in women’s colony No. 4 in Homiel.

On paper — taxes, “enmity,” “national security.” In substance — revenge for an independent medium too many people read. Covered by Nasha Niva, BAJ and Press Club Belarus.

Father. Son. A life that went on without her

During the years behind bars Liudmila lost her father and could not even say goodbye. Her son managed to finish university, serve in the army and come home. He was waiting for her freedom — Nasha Niva reported. In her first minutes in Vilnius Chekina said words that outrun any sentencing math:

“Being in captivity is like being buried alive. Our parents died, and we could not attend their funerals. Our children were growing up without us.”

That is what she told BAJ and said on Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. And immediately — about those still inside: women with small children, elderly parents who need care. “This is not the time for lightning strikes. This is the time for negotiations.”

Free today. Not “the end”

On 16 September Chekina was in the group of 25 people taken to Lithuania after talks between U.S. special envoy John Cole and Lukashenka.

She is a lawyer by training (Belarusian State University law faculty); from 2017 she headed TUT BY MEDIA. Born in 1973 in Sergiyev Posad, she grew up in Zhodzina. She did not back down — and paid with five years behind bars on a twelve-year sentence. Today, she said, even the sky looks different. What she asks most: free everyone else.