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Ryanair plane at Minsk airport: "act of state terrorism"
Photo: - / AFP
A man wants to fly from one EU country (Greece) to another (Lithuania) - but the plane is forced to land over Belarus.
There security guards seize the Ryanair plane and arrest the man.
That is what happened to the Belarusian regime critic Roman Protasevich this Sunday.
Dozens of passengers are stuck.
(Read the latest information on the case here.)
All over Europe, politicians are expressing horror, speaking of »kidnapping« and »piracy«.
CDU boss and Chancellor candidate
Armin Laschet
said via Twitter: "If Belarus threatens the freedom of civil aviation on a flight between two member states of the European Union, the European Council has to deal with the consequences." The arrested opposition member should be released immediately.
A special EU summit of heads of state and government begins in Brussels on Monday.
Lithuanian President
Gitanas Nauseda also
protested against the forced stopover and arrest.
"I call on the allies in NATO and the EU to react immediately to the threat that the Belarusian regime has created for international civil aviation," he said.
The Greek Prime Minister Minister
Kyriakos Mitsotakis
described the incident as "unprecedented and shocking".
Belarusian opposition leader
Svetlana Tichanovskaya
said Belarus had jeopardized the safety of passengers and civil aviation for the arrest.
Germany asked Belarus to comment.
The government there must immediately declare itself to the diversion of the flight and the reported arrest of a journalist, tweeted the State Secretary of the Foreign Office,
Miguel Berger
.
The CDU foreign politician
Norbert Röttgen
reacted even more sharply.
"If the information is confirmed, it is an incredible case of state terrorism," he told the editorial network Germany.
"This should have clear consequences."
EU Commission chief
Ursula von der Leyen
said the incident was unacceptable.
Violations of international air traffic rules would have consequences.
She also called on Belarus to allow all passengers on the Ryanair plane to continue their journey to Vilnius without delay.
The Polish Prime Minister
Mateusz Morawiecki
even characterized Belarus' actions as an "act of state terrorism".
He condemned "in the strongest possible terms the arrest of Roman Prosatevitsch by the Belarusian authorities after a passenger plane was hijacked by Ryanair," Morawiecki said on Twitter.
Sweden's Foreign Minister
Ann Linde
tweeted that the reports were very disturbing.
"Completely unacceptable and inconsiderate behavior," she wrote.
Her compatriot
Carl Bildt
, Swedish Foreign Minister from 2006 to 2014, spoke on Twitter of it being "simply piracy".
Meanwhile, the airline
Ryanair
has confirmed that one of its planes on its way from Athens to the Lithuanian capital Vilnius has been diverted to Belaraus.
The crew of the flight had been informed by the Belarusian side of a possible security threat on board and instructed to fly to the nearest airport in Minsk, the airline said.
The machine landed safely and passengers disembarked while local authorities carried out safety checks.
Nothing unusual was found.
The authorities then approved that after an estimated five hours on the ground, the plane could take off again together with passengers and crew.
A departure around 7 p.m. local time (6 p.m. CEST) is expected.
Ryanair did not provide any information about Protassevich's arrest.
wal / Reuters / dpa
