Belarusian opposition channel Nexta announced that one of its former collaborators was arrested in Minsk after the Ryanair flight on which he was traveling from Athens to Vilnius was diverted to the Belarusian capital. Roman Protassevitch, 26 years old, was brought down and taken away. The flight had been diverted after a “bomb alert”. The press service of the Belarusian presidency made it known on Telegram that a MIG-29 fighter was sent to intercept the plane.
Last November, the Minsk security services had put Protasevich’s name on the list of “individuals involved in terrorist activities”. Protasevich was a collaborator of Nexta, a media that played a leading role in the great wave of protests following the re-election last year of President Aleksander Lukashenko, in office since 1994.
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Protasevich’s arrest was immediately condemned by the well-known Belarusian opponent in exile Svetlana Tikhanovskaja: on Twitter she said she was certain that the regime wanted to hijack Protasevich’s plane, which now – she warned – risks the death penalty “.
The Lithuanian president demanded the immediate release of Protasevich: “This hijacking is a threat to international civil aviation”.
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The protests last autumn saw tens of thousands of people mobilized in Minsk and other cities, but the fierce repression then slowed the pace of protests.
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