EU Fury Mounts After Belarus Forces Landing of Plane Carrying Opposition Blogger
Voice of America
European leaders are vowing to punish Belarus for illegally diverting to Minsk Sunday a Lithuanian-bound Ryanair flight carrying a fugitive critic of Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko.
Their fury was fueled as more details emerged Monday of the dramatic events leading up to the diversion of the plane. The Ryanair Boeing 737 was carrying 171 passengers and crew had taken off from Athens and was flying over Belarus. It was just moments from leaving Belarusian air space when the captain was signaled by the pilot of a Belarus MiG-29 jet to land in the Belarus capital and not to proceed to the scheduled destination, Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital. When the plane landed in Minsk, Belarusian security service officers detained 26-year-old opposition blogger Raman Pratasevich, who could face a death sentence on charges of helping to organize protests against President Lukashenko. Just before the aircraft landed, he gave his laptop and cell phone to a friend for safekeeping, passengers told reporters in Vilnius. Pratasevich’s girlfriend, Sofia, was also detained. And reports emerged Monday of another detainee.Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. Fire rages following an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced Palestinians, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, in this still picture taken from a video, May 26, 2024. Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. A member of the bomb squad of the Israeli police collects debris after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants struck in the Israeli city of Herzliya on May 26, 2024.
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, right, and Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, left, leave a podium after marking Independence Day in Tbilisi, Georgia, May 26, 2024. Demonstrators with Georgian national and EU flags rally during an opposition protest against a foreign influence bill as they mark their country's Independence Day, in the center of in Tbilisi, Georgia, May 26, 2024.