STRIPPED of cant, the diversion of a commercial aircraft and subsequent arrest of two passengers: a journalist and his Russian girlfriend, by Belarus, was a flagrant act of lawlessness. In what the United States government called “an affront to international norms,” the dictatorial regime of President Alexander Lukashenko forced a Ryanair flight from Athens, Greece, to Vilnius, Lithuania to divert to Minsk, the Belarusian capital. On landing, officials arrested Roman Protasevich and Sofia Sapega. It is a blatant violation and challenge to freedom of the skies and international travel, a precedent that the world must unite against to prevent a repeat anywhere.
To the 126 passengers on the Irish airliner, the events of May 23 looked like a horror movie. As reconstructed by international news media, Ryanair Flight 4978, flying through Belarusian airspace, had begun its gradual descent to nearby Vilnius when the nightmare began. Belarusian Air Traffic Controllers reportedly signalled the pilot that a bomb was suspected to be aboard the plane and could be detonated above Vilnius; they asked him to land at Minsk. To ensure compliance, a Belarusian Air Force MiG fighter jet escorted the plane to the airport. As the distraught passengers disembarked, the real purpose of the subterfuge unfolded. Protasevich, 26, an exiled opposition journalist and critic of the repressive regime, alongside his girlfriend, Sapega, were arrested. Hours later, the aircraft and the rest of the passengers, minus three, believed to be Belarusian intelligence agents, were allowed to go. Hijacking of a commercial aircraft mid-air follows the reprehensible playbook of terrorists.
The outrage that has greeted this act of state terrorism is matched by the defiance and false narratives of the event pushed by the Lukashenko government and its main foreign ally, Russia. He should be made to pay a high price for this assault on global travel and international law. Both countries are already under sanctions imposed by the US and European Union countries for domestic violations of rights and foreign activities deemed offensive by the international community.
Lukashenko is taking his brutal repression of dissent at home to the international arena; he should be resisted. The Ryanair hijack threatens the global aviation and tourism sector; the arrest of dissidents beyond its borders threatens individual and press freedoms. The act also put the passengers at risk. Normally, passengers on an international flight are regarded as being under the protection of the country whose flag the airline is flying. But Belarus went to great lengths to nab a single dissident. Its claim that it acted in response to an email from Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, that it had planted a bomb onboard the plane, has been discredited. Hamas promptly denied sending such an email, and it was found by investigative journalists and a London-based research group, Dossier Centre, that the alleged threat was sent 24 minutes after Belarus had ordered the aircraft’s diversion. German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, dismissed Lukashenko’s claim that he acted to protect lives as “completely implausible.” The action particularly alarms the neighbouring Ukraine and European Union member countries: Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, whose commercial airlines often have to fly through Belarus’ airspace and who host exiled Belarusians.
Many European airlines immediately cancelled flights to Belarus and avoided its airspace. The US issued a ‘Level 4’ warning to its citizens to avoid travelling to Belarus, urged airlines to exercise “extreme caution” when travelling through Belarusian airspace and suspended the 2019 Bilateral Air Services Agreement with the former Soviet republic. It imposed further sanctions to existing ones put in place in response to the brutal repression of Belarusians that accompanied last August’s presidential election in which Lukashenko claimed victory with 80 per cent of the vote, but which the opposition and international observers said was rigged. He has been in office since 1994, winning every presidential election that, according to a report by Civil Rights Defenders, is deemed by international monitors to be neither free nor fair. His main opponent, Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya, who claims she won the 2020 contest by 60 per cent, is also in exile in Lithuania; her husband is in jail in Belarus like hundreds of protesters who denounced the poll result. Several persons have died.
All 27 member countries of the EU need to escalate the sanctions they imposed last year, including banning Belavia, the Belarusian national carrier, from their airspace. They should remain steadfast, especially as Russia, Lukashenko’s main international enabler, has as usual, backed his impunity. They should follow through on promised additional sanctions against the duo.
The International Civil Aviation Organisation has launched a fact-finding investigation to establish whether Belarus breached international law as alleged by the EU and the US, including the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation. It is not only freedom that Lukashenko threatens, his action also hampers the international tourism industry, which has already been buffeted by the COVID-19 pandemic and struggling to recover. The United Nations World Tourism Organisation said international tourist arrivals fell by 72 per cent January-October 2020, representing $935 billion in lost global export revenues.
Moreover, Lukashenko’s assault on journalists and the mass media should be resisted. Protasevich, a former editor of Nexta, a dissident online medium, fled Belarus in 2019. Many other journalists have been harassed and jailed while media outlets have been shut down as repression escalated after the disputed 2020 presidential polls. Protasevich faces 15 years in jail for the alleged offence of “organising mass unrest”; activists now fear he risks the death penalty as Minsk has allegedly put his name on a terrorism suspects list.
The international community should intensify the campaign to free the detainees; the Belarus regime should be isolated and stronger sanctions imposed on it and its backer, Russia. The world should not relent in opposing brutal dictators, whether in Belarus, Myanmar or anywhere else where fundamental rights and international law are under threat.
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