Jailed Activist Interview "Disgrace" For Belarus Government, Says Germany

Germany called the broadcast with activist Roman Protasevich confessing to calling for protests last year "absolutely disgraceful and implausible".

Germany on Friday slammed as a "disgrace" for the Belarus government an interview shown on state television with a journalist arrested after his plane was forced to land in Minsk. German government spokesman Steffen Seibert called Thursday's broadcast with journalist and activist Roman Protasevich, confessing to calling for protests last year, "absolutely disgraceful and implausible". Seibert said Berlin "condemned in the strongest terms" Protasevich's second apparently coerced media appearance since his detention, and accused Belarusian authorities of "mentally and possibly physically" pressuring him into speaking before the camera. "That is a disgrace for the broadcaster showing (the interview) and for the Belarusian leadership which is once again showing its contempt for democracy and, it must be said, for humanity," Seibert said.