EU leaders agree on Belarus sanctions after journalist’s arrest

The bloc agrees to ban Belarus from its airspace amid other sanctions for the forced diversion of a jet for an arrest.

European Union leaders have agreed on a set of sanctions against Belarus, including a ban on the use of the 27-nation bloc’s airspace and airports amid fury for the forced diversion of a passenger jet flying between two EU countries in order to arrest an opposition journalist. In what EU leaders have called a brazen “hijacking” of Irish carrier Ryanair’s plane flying from Greece to Lithuania on Sunday, they demanded on Monday the immediate release of Roman Protasevich, a key critic of authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. The EU leaders also decided to slap individual sanction of officials linked to the operation, and called on the International Civil Aviation Organization to start an investigation into what they see as an unprecedented move and what some have called “state terrorism”.