A state judge ruled Tuesday that any article published by Tribuna in which the governor is mentioned must be approved by the court.

In addition, the judge directed González, who was the editorial director of the newspaper for 30 years until his retirement in 2017, to submit to the court for review any future material in which Sensores is mentioned.

“The verdict against Jorge Luis González and Tribuna is nothing less than a gag order that constitutes a clear case of the courts siding with a state governor in overt efforts to silence any critical reporting of her administration,” said Jan-Albert Hootsen, CPJ’s Mexico representative. “CPJ is alarmed by the sharp increase in lawfare against critical media in Mexico, where journalists continue to be attacked with almost complete impunity.”

The ruling by the Campeche state court is only the latest episode in the ongoing legal assault by Sansores on Tribuna and González, both of whom she sued on June 13, 2025, accusing them of spreading hatred and causing moral damages in coverage of her administration.

It is unclear which specific reports caused the governor to sue Tribuna, González told CPJ. It is also unclear why the lawsuit targets González, as he is no longer with the paper after his retirement in 2017. 

A previous ruling ordered González to pay “moral damages” of $2 million pesos (about USD$110,000) to Sansores and prohibited both the reporter and Tribuna from mentioning the governor in any reports, according to news reports. That sentence was suspended on July 9, after González successfully filed an injunction, which CPJ has reviewed, citing the Mexican Constitution’s prohibition of censorship before publication.

González said he planned to appeal, but it wasn’t immediately clear what strategies were available to him.

Several calls by CPJ to Sansores’ office for comment were unanswered.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Jan-Albert Hootsen/CPJ Mexico Representative.

A state judge ruled Tuesday that any article published by Tribuna in which the governor is mentioned must be approved by the court.

In addition, the judge directed González, who was the editorial director of the newspaper for 30 years until his retirement in 2017, to submit to the court for review any future material in which Sensores is mentioned.

“The verdict against Jorge Luis González and Tribuna is nothing less than a gag order that constitutes a clear case of the courts siding with a state governor in overt efforts to silence any critical reporting of her administration,” said Jan-Albert Hootsen, CPJ’s Mexico representative. “CPJ is alarmed by the sharp increase in lawfare against critical media in Mexico, where journalists continue to be attacked with almost complete impunity.”

The ruling by the Campeche state court is only the latest episode in the ongoing legal assault by Sansores on Tribuna and González, both of whom she sued on June 13, 2025, accusing them of spreading hatred and causing moral damages in coverage of her administration.

It is unclear which specific reports caused the governor to sue Tribuna, González told CPJ. It is also unclear why the lawsuit targets González, as he is no longer with the paper after his retirement in 2017. 

A previous ruling ordered González to pay “moral damages” of $2 million pesos (about USD$110,000) to Sansores and prohibited both the reporter and Tribuna from mentioning the governor in any reports, according to news reports. That sentence was suspended on July 9, after González successfully filed an injunction, which CPJ has reviewed, citing the Mexican Constitution’s prohibition of censorship before publication.

González said he planned to appeal, but it wasn’t immediately clear what strategies were available to him.

Several calls by CPJ to Sansores’ office for comment were unanswered.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Jan-Albert Hootsen/CPJ Mexico Representative.

“Belarusian authorities should immediately and unconditionally release journalist Aliaksandr Ivulin and let all members of the press work freely and safely,” said CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Gulnoza Said. “Ivulin’s case shows that authorities will use any excuse to punish members of the press who dare to cover protests or other newsworthy events that the government prefers be kept quiet.”

Ivulin covers soccer for Tribuna, Belarus’s largest independent sports news website, and also runs the soccer-focused YouTube channel ChestnOK, which has about 75,000 subscribers, according to Tribuna director Maksim Berazinsky, who spoke to CPJ in late 2021, and CPJ research.

Berazinsky told CPJ he believed ChestnOK’s interviews with athletes who supported the 2020 protests against Aleksandr Lukashenko, coupled with Ivulin’s popularity on the channel, prompted his June 3, 2021, arrest.

Ivulin was initially sentenced to 30 days in prison for allegedly participating in protests in Minsk that he was covering as a journalist; on his 29th day in detention, authorities declared that he was a suspect in a criminal case, and on July 9 charged him with organizing violations of public order, according to media reports from the time. 

His trial at the Soviet District Court in Minsk began on Monday, January 17, 2022, and concluded Wednesday; Ivulin was found guilty of organizing “activities blatantly aimed at disrupting social order” and was sentenced to two years in prison, according to news reports and the Belarusian Association of Journalists, an independent advocacy and trade group.

Belarus held at least 19 journalists behind bars for their work at the time of CPJ’s most recent prison census on December 1, 2021.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Last week, authorities in Belarus charged Iryna Leushyna, the director of the country’s largest independent news agency BelaPAN, and the agency’s former director Dzmitry Navazhylau with large-scale tax evasion, according to a September 7 report by BelaPAN-owned news site Naviny.by.

BelaPAN correspondent Tanya Korovenkova, who spoke to CPJ by messaging app, confirmed the report, which did not say the exact date of the charge.

If convicted on these charges, Leushyna and Navazhylau will face between three and seven years in prison or five years of restrictions on freedom of movement depending on the court’s discretion under the criminal code of Belarus.

The two are currently in prison after they were arrested on August 18 during a raid on BelaPAN, as CPJ documented at the time. An initial statement posted on Telegram by the Belarusian Investigative Committee said that they were arrested for organizing or participating in public order violations in relation to last year’s protests, but CPJ was unable to determine if they have been charged.

Separately, over the past 10 days, authorities in Belarus have searched the homes of at least four journalists at two other outlets, detained two journalists and convicted them of administrative offenses, and brought criminal charges against the chief editor of a local news site, according to news reports.

“The latest raids, detentions, and spurious charges against independent journalists in Belarus demonstrate once again how authorities’ alleged ‘investigations’ into last year’s mass protests against President Aleksandr Lukashenko’s disputed election victory have become a pretext to silence any media organization that dared to cover the protests,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia Program coordinator, in New York. “Authorities in Belarus must immediately release Iryna Leushyna and Dzimitry Navazhylau, drop all charges against them and other journalists recently subjected to searches and detention, and once and for all stop abusing the law to stifle independent reporting.”

CPJ called the Interior Ministry, the Office of the Prosecutor-General, and the Investigative Committee of Belarus for confirmation of the charges against Leushyna and Navazhylau, but the calls either did not connect or went unanswered.

CPJ has also documented recent press freedom violations at the following Belarusian outlets: 

Tribuna

Since August 31, authorities in Belarus have raided the homes of three current and former staff members at the independent sports news website Tribuna, including the outlet’s director Maksim Berazinski, and sentenced the website’s former correspondent Andrei Maslovski to 15 days in administrative detention, according to news reports and Berazinski, who spoke to CPJ in a telephone interview. Berazinski said the sports site often runs athletes’ unvarnished political opinions and has been critical of the government.

Berazinski told CPJ that police searched his apartment on September 1 on the orders of the Investigative Committee of Belarus as part of investigations into last year’s protests. He said that he currently resides abroad and has not lived at that address for a year, and police were therefore only able to confiscate an old computer and old USB flash drives. Officers told his mother, who later arrived at the scene, that they would inspect the confiscated objects before deciding on Berazinski’s status in the investigation, he said.

Police searched the home of Maslovski, who left Tribuna in July this year and currently works for the independent sports news site Sportarena, on the morning of September 6, according to news reports. Berazinski told CPJ that Maslovski was not at home at the time but complied with a telephone summons to report to the Interior Ministry’s organized crime and corruption department later that day. Berazinski said police then detained Maslovski and transferred him to the Akrestsin detention center in Minsk.

Yesterday, the Central district court in Minsk sentenced Maslovski to 15 days of administrative arrest on charges of distributing materials banned as extremist, according to a report by Tribuna and Berazinski.

Tribuna reporter Aliaksandr Ivulin was arrested at the start of June and charged in July with organizing or participating in actions grossly violating public order and remains in detention awaiting trial, according to Berazinski and the Belarusian Association of Journalists. Independent news website Charter 97  said authorities were “taking revenge” on the journalist, whose sports-focused YouTube blog has been critical of the government. If convicted, Ivulin could face up to four years in prison, according to the criminal code.

Tribuna has been blocked by the Belarusian Ministry of Information since August 9, 2020, following the outbreak of the protests, Berazinski told CPJ. Last month, a court banned Tribuna’s website and social media accounts as “extremist,” as CPJ documented at the time.

CPJ called the Interior Ministry and the Investigative Committee for comment on the actions against Tribuna and its journalists but the calls were not answered. CPJ emailed the Investigative Committee but did not receive a reply.

Virtualniy Brest

On September 7, the Interior Ministry of Belarus announced on Telegram that Andrei Kukharchyk, chief editor of independent news site Virtualniy Brest, which covers the Brest region in southwestern Belarus, was charged with criminal insult of a state official. If convicted, Kukharchyk faces up to three years in prison, according to the criminal code of Belarus.

In its announcement, the ministry accused Kukharchyk of engaging in “destructive protest activities” by creating a Telegram chat group, declared extremist by a Brest city court in July, where he allegedly “distributed extremist materials and published insults” against parliamentary deputies.

Kukharchyk told CPJ by messaging app that he was unable to comment on the case.

Authorities previously raided Kukharchyk’s apartment on February 26 this year in connection with investigations into public order offenses, according to reports, and again on July 9, as CPJ documented at the time.

On August 20, a court fined Kukharchyk 290 Belarusian rubles (US$116) for alleged distribution of extremist materials after Virtualniy Brest published an image of a man allegedly wearing a shirt featuring a swastika, according to the Belarusian Association of Journalists.

Virtualniy Brest was among dozens of news sites blocked in August 2020, as CPJ documented, for allegedly disseminating banned information, according to a report by the Belarusian Association of Journalists. The website is still blocked but is now accessible in Belarus with a Russian domain, Kukharchyk said.

CPJ called the Interior Ministry and the Investigative Committee for comment on Kukharchyk’s case but the calls were not answered. CPJ emailed the Investigative Committee but did not receive a reply.

Green Portal

On September 3, law enforcement officers in Minsk broke down the doors of the apartment of Yanina Melnikava, chief editor of the independent environmental news website Green Portal, and confiscated her laptop and cell phone and her husband’s computer hard disk, according to reports by Green Portal and the outlet’s deputy editor Hanna Valynets, who spoke to CPJ by messaging app.

According Valynets, police took Melnikava to Investigative Committee headquarters for questioning in relation to a criminal investigation, though she was unable to provide details on whether Melnikava was the one under investigation. 

Police then transferred Melnikava to Partyzanski district police station in Minsk, where they accused her of refusing to get out of the police vehicle, waving her arms, and attempting to escape. Due to her alleged behavior a court fined her 2,755 rubles (US$1,093) for failure to comply with police orders, according to a report by the Belarusian Association of Journalists.  

Following this, she was detained at Akrestsin detention center over the weekend and released September 6 after 72 hours in custody, BAJ reported.

Green Portal frequently criticizes authorities both on environmental topics and for recent repressive measures against environmental activists and NGOs, according to a CPJ review of the outlet’s website and social media accounts.

CPJ called the Interior Ministry and the Investigative Committee for comment on Melnikava’s case but the calls went unanswered. CPJ emailed the Investigative Committee but did not receive a reply.

Media-Polesye

The Brest region prosecutor’s office announced September 7 that it had ordered the independent regional news site Media-Polesye to be blocked for six months for publishing photos and videos from internet sites previously declared extremist and linking to these sites, and for publishing videos “which clearly negatively characterize the socio-political situation in the country since the end of the election campaign and discredit the activities of state and law enforcement agencies.”

In July, authorities raided the outlet’s office and the homes of editor Sviatlana Harda and other senior employees and confiscated equipment, according to the outlet’s Telegram channel.

CPJ called the Interior Ministry for comment but the calls were not answered.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

On May 31, the Maskouski District Court in Minsk, the capital, sentenced Zhuk, a correspondent for the independent news website Narodnaya Volya, to 30 days in detention for allegedly disobeying police while she was covering opposition supporters’ trial on May 14, according to news reports, which said that she is being held in the Akrestsina detention center in Minsk.

“The jail sentence for journalist Hlafira Zhuk is just the latest evidence that it is next to impossible to report freely in Belarus,” said CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, Gulnoza Said, in New York. “Belarusian authorities should cease harassing and detaining journalists, and should let the media report the news without fear.”

Since May 30, authorities have also harassed or detained at least five other journalists, according to news reports and journalists who spoke with CPJ. 

On May 30, police officers in the western city of Hrodna briefly detained Aleksey Shota, editor-in-chief of the independent news website Hrodna.life, according to news reports and the journalist, who spoke to CPJ in a phone interview. 

Shota said that police officers in plain clothes detained him near his home and confiscated his laptop and three computer drives. Authorities later charged him with “distribution of extremist materials” in relation to content published on Hrodna.life, he said. If convicted, he could face a fine of up to 16,000 Belarusian rubles ($6,300) according to the country’s administrative code. 

Shota said the charges stemmed from a May 24 article published on Hrodna.life that featured a summary of foreign press coverage of the detention of blogger Raman Pratasevich, which also included the logo of channel Pratasevich’s Telegram channel NEXTA, which authorities consider to be an “extremist” symbol. He said Hrodna.life took down the image later that day, but police had already seen it.

Shota told CPJ that police considered Hrodna.life special projects editor Irina Novik directly responsible for publishing the article and the logo. Police raided Novik’s home on June 1, arrested her, and charged her with “distribution of extremist materials, containing calls to extremist activity,” according to Shota and news reports. Shota said he believed she would be sentenced in the next few days.

On May 31 the national prosecutor general’s office sent an official letter to Aksana Kolb, the editor-in-chief of independent newspaper Novy Chas, warning her that the outlet had “used certain expressions and certain speech that contributes to the escalation of tension in society, incites hatred and enmity against government officials,” according to a report by Novy Chas and Kolb, who spoke to CPJ by phone.

Kolb told CPJ that “these allegations are ridiculous,” but called the letter “a sign that more severe punishment may follow.”

Also on May 31, a Minsk city court dismissed an appeal for the release of independent news website Tut.by editor-in-chief Maryna Zolatava and business reporter Elena Tolkacheva, according to reports. The two were first arrested on tax evasion charges on May 18, as CPJ documented at the time. If convicted, they could face up to seven years in prison and fines, according to the Belarusian criminal code. 

CPJ is also investigating today’s sentencing by the Oktyabrski District Court, in Minsk, of Dzmitry Ruto, a reporter with the news website Tribuna. According to multiple reports by his employer, officers detained Ruto yesterday after finding in his car a white and red scarf, the colors associated with anti-government protests. He was charged and convicted with illegally organizing mass events, and sentenced to 15 days in detention today, according to those reports. CPJ was unable to immediately determine whether the charge was retaliation for his journalism.

Volha Khvoin, head of analysis and information services at the Belarusian Association of Journalists, a local advocacy and trade organization, told CPJ by phone that the recent detentions “indicate that the authorities have chosen a road of repression and journalists are the clear target group.”

CPJ called the Oktyabrski District Court, Maskouski District Court, and Leninski police station for comment, but the calls rang unanswered or the people who answered refused to comment.

CPJ also repeatedly called Volha Chemodanava, the head of the press office of the Belarusian Ministry of Interior, but no one answered.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.