She is considered a political prisoner by the European Union, the United States of America, and numerous human rights defenders.
While in 2004 the site had only 6000 unique visitors per day, by 2020 it grew into the biggest Belarusian Internet media with more than 50 journalists in staff and daily audience of more than 600,000.
Notably, the practice of sharing passwords is widespread in Belarusian media, BelTA took very few precautionary measures and never before served as a criminal complainant in court.
[6][7] Following the large scale protests of 2020 after presidential election, 2021 became the year of massive state crackdown of independent media and journalists.
[9][10] Tut.by was 'punished' by authorities for covering the protests and publishing uncensored news while state-controlled media tried to create fake impression of calm and undisturbed post-election country.
"[28] PEN America stated that Zolotava's sentence is part of the relentless campaign of "the Belarusian government to punish and silence independent media".
Along with photos of Andrzej Poczobut, Ihar Losik, and Alexander Mantsevich, participants from all around the world held Zolatava's portrait.