Parents Plea For Release of Belarus Opposition Activists

The parents of the young opposition activist and blogger detained in Minsk after the passenger jet he was on board was forced to land in the Belarusian capital earlier this week are pleading for the international community to help free their son.

“I’m asking, I’m begging, I’m calling on the whole international community to save him,” Raman Pratasevich’s mother, Natalia, told AFP. Speaking from her home in Poland, she added, “Please save him. They’re going to kill him there.” “They sent a fighter jet to get this young man! It's an act of terrorism — I don't think you can call it anything else. He's been taken hostage. This is an act of pure revenge!” she said. Her husband, Dmitry Pratasevich, a former soldier, said: “His lawyer tried to see him today but she was turned down. She could not see him. We still don’t know if he is in there, what his condition is, how he is feeling.”