The diversion of a Ryanair flight to Lithuania by Belarus, leading to the arrest of an opposition journalist who was a passenger, has sparked international outrage and calls for tough sanctions against the former Soviet nation.
Here is a look at what happened in the sky over Belarus and the aftermath of the incident.
WHAT HAPPENED ON THE FLIGHT?
Ryanair Flight FR4978, traveling Sunday from Athens to the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, was in Belarus airspace about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the Lithuanian border when it changed direction and turned toward the Belarusian capital of Minsk.
Ryanair said Belarusian flight controllers told the pilots that there was a bomb threat against the jetliner and ordered them to land in Minsk. The Belarusian military scrambled a MiG-29 fighter jet in an apparent attempt to encourage the crew to comply with the orders of flight controllers.
Once the plane landed, Belarusian security agents arrested Raman Pratasevich, who ran a popular messaging app that helped organize mass demonstrations against President Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus’ authoritarian leader. They also removed from the plane Pratasevich’s Russian girlfriend, Sofia Sapega, who studies at a Vilnius university.
Agents with dogs then checked the plane and the passenger luggage, and eventually let the flight continue to Vilnius hours later.
Ryanair’s CEO Michael O’Leary described the move as “a case of state-sponsored hijacking … state-sponsored piracy.”
WHY DID BELARUS DO IT?
To arrest Pratasevich, a 26-year-old activist and journalist who left Belarus in 2019 and faced charges there of inciting riots. He was a blogger and co-founder and editor of Nexta, a popular channel on the Telegram messaging app that was a key factor in organizing protests in Belarus after a presidential election in August 2020.
Lukashenko, who has run the nation of 9.3 million with an iron fist for over a quarter century, was declared the winner by landslide, but the opposition and some election workers say the vote was rigged. Months of protests followed, representing the strongest challenge to Lukashenko’s rule since he took over in 1994 following the demise of the Soviet Union.
The Belarusian authorities have unleashed a brutal crackdown on demonstrations. More than 34,000 people have been arrested since August, including opposition activists, and thousands have been beaten and abused by police to try to stem the protests.
Pratasevich was charged in absentia with inciting mass riots, and he faces 15 years in prison if convicted. But the Belarusian state security agency, which still goes by its Soviet-era name KGB, also has put him on a list of people suspected of involvement in terrorism, a sign he could face more serious charges. Terrorism is punishable by death in Belarus, the only country in Europe that still has capital punishment.
WHAT’S THE INTERNATIONAL REACTION?
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the incident “shocking” and appealed for Pratasevich’s release. The European Union summoned Belarus’ ambassador to condemn the act against the jetliner, which was traveling between two of the bloc’s member nations.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said it amounted to a “hijacking,” and Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda called it a “state-sponsored terror act.”
Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya called on the International Civil Aviation Organization to begin an investigation, and the ICAO later said it “is strongly concerned by the apparent forced landing.”
An EU summit is considering a strong response, even after previous sanctions against Belarusian officials over their involvement in rigging the August election and the crackdown on protests. Some EU leaders called for scrapping landing rights in the bloc for Belarus’ national airline or exclusions from sports events.
Britain on Monday barred Belarus’ national airline Belavia from operating in the U.K. and instructed British carriers to avoid Belarusian airspace. Latvian airline airBaltic said it would avoid Belarusian airspace, and Lithuania’s government instructed all incoming and outgoing flights to avoid Belarus starting Tuesday, without waiting for the EU decision.
Amid the Western pressure, Belarus can rely on its main sponsor and ally, Russia, which has provided political support and financial assistance to Lukashenko’s government amid the protests. The Kremlin made no comment on the diverted flight but it will likely stand firmly behind Lukashenko.
(AP)
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One Response
When will this obsession with journalists and freedom of the press stop? The Israelis were taken to task for destroying a terrorist base recently because the same building was being used by several press agencies. Without a doubt, the local stringers of AP, all Gaza residents, knew what was going on in the building even if the horrified head of AP in New York did not. By continuing to provide cover for the terrorists AP supported them for years until the Israelis rightly decided to put a stop to the game. Here the Belarus authorities say that one of the passengers is a domestic terrorist. He claims to be a “journalist”. The Belarus Government decided that all is fair in love and war and seized the opportunity of his flying over Belarus territory to get hold of one they see as an enemy of the state. The Belarus secret service intelligence network clearly works. However, all we hear is the hackneyed clarion calls of “freedom of the press” and “journalists”. All the terrorists need to do is call themselves journalists to be deemed untouchables. What is the real difference between this story and the 2013 scandal when Bolivian President Morales plane home from Moscow, where he had attended an international conference, was forced to land in Vienna after it was denied permission, once already in the air, to overfly several Western European nations? It was thought that Morales had the “journalist” Edward Snowden or board. When his plane was forced to land in Vienna it was searched hoping to find the “journalist”. He was not there but if he had been he would for sure have been taken into custody. Belarus is however a small nation the rest of the world can bully. It is believed the US was behind the “diversion” of the Bolivian President’s aircraft. The only difference between that episode and this is that the US achieved its aim by “persuasion” without the need to send up a fighter bomber!