The Economist: Outrage mounts at Belarus’s use of air piracy in aid of repression

By The Economist.

Published May 25, 2021. Updated May 25 at 2:19 am

A woman stands with a poster reading 'Where is Roman (Protasevich)?!' in the arrival area as passengers disembark from a Ryanair passenger plane from Athens, Greece, that was intercepted and diverted to Minsk on the same day by Belarus authorities, after it landed at Vilnius International Airport, its initial destination, on May 23, 2021.

Photo by AFP

Western statesmen have been competing with each other to express their horror and fury at what was tantamount to an act of piracy perpetrated by Belarus’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, on May 23rd. Antony Blinken, America’s secretary of state, said America “strongly condemns” the “shocking act”, in which Mr Lukashenko forced a Ryanair passenger plane to make an unscheduled stop in his capital in order to arrest Roman Protasevich, the co-founder and former editor of an internet channel, NEXTA.