According to the specialized NGO Viasna, the editor-in-chief of the website Marina Zolotova, 45, and its director general Lyudmila Chekina, 54, were sentenced after a closed trial that lasted more than two months.

"The verdict against our colleagues is a cruel revenge for having transmitted with (their media) Tut.by the truth to Belarusians," the Belarusian Association of Journalists said in a statement.

Marina Zolotova and Lyudmila Chekina were accused of tax evasion and incitement to social hatred, charges described as "absurd" by the NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

The two women appeared at the verdict in the glass cage reserved for the defendants, smiling shyly, according to images published Friday by state media Belta.

They were arrested in May 2021 and have been behind bars ever since.

Two journalists and a lawyer from Tut.by, who fled Belarus, are also being tried separately.

Friday's sentencing is emblematic of Lukashenko's ruthless crackdown on criticism of his regime since a massive protest movement that faltered him in 2020.

For weeks, the Tut.by website had covered the protest, which brought tens of thousands of people to the streets of Minsk and other cities to denounce the highly contested re-election of Alexander Lukashenko, in power for three decades.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko during a rare meeting with foreign media, in the presidential palace in Minsk, February 16, 2023 © Natalia KOLESNIKOVA / AFP/Archives

"Proud of you"

Tut.by had been described as "extremist" by the authorities and blocked in Belarus in 2021. But several of its journalists who left Belarus relaunched the site under a new name, Zerkalo ("mirror" in Russian).

"We are proud of you. Your integrity and perseverance are an example to all of us," Zerkalo journalists said in a message posted on their website on Friday, ahead of the verdict.

"We are proud to continue your work, to give Belarusians real information," they added.

Several prominent opponents and civil society figures have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms in recent months.

In early March, exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison after a trial she described as a judicial "farce".

A few days earlier, activist Ales Bialiatski, co-winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize and a figure in the democratic movement in Belarus where he still stands, was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Belarusian human rights defender Ales Beliatski, co-winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, in Stockholm on December 3, 2020 © Anders WIKLUND / TT News Agency / AFP / Archives

According to the Belarusian human rights organization Viasna, there were 1,461 political prisoners in Belarus as of March 1.

Westerners have imposed heavy sanctions on Belarus for cracking down on the 2020 protests, but Lukashenko's regime still enjoys Moscow's unwavering support.

© 2023 AFP