In Minsk, the former editor -in -chief of NEXTA Roman Protasevich was detained. The plane on which he flew was urgently imprisoned in Belarus due to a message about the bomb

Lukashenko personally made a decision on landing to “protect Europe”

On the afternoon of May 23 in Minsk, the board of the Airline Ryanair, flying from Athens to Vilnius, sat urgently in Minsk.

According to the adviser to Svetlana Tikhanak Franak Vyachorka, there was a journalist, former editor-in-chief of the Nexta telegram channel Roman Protasevich-after leaving Nexta, he edited another opposition channel “Belarus of the brain”.

Before departure, according to Nexta, Protasevich noticed surveillance. In Minsk, passengers were removed from the plane and sent to the airport for a second inspection, during which Protasevich was detained.

The airport of Minsk said that the Ryanair plane landed after the signal of the laid bomb - the pilots themselves allegedly requested landing. At the same time, the head of the communications department of the Vilnius International Airport (the flight was supposed to arrive there) Lina Beishene said : “As far as I know, a conflict occurred between the crew member and the passenger. The plane has now successfully landed. We have no other official information. ” NEXTA reported that, according to preliminary information, the KGB officers who insisted that there was an explosive device during the flight. As a result, the crew was forced to request an emergency landing.

Close to the press service of Alexander Lukashenko, the Telegram channel “Poole of the First” immediately after the flight of the flight published a post with the heading “Belarus Protecting Europe”. It emphasized: “The situation was reported to the president. Lukashenko gave an unconditional team: to deploy and accept the plane. ”

The Pool of the First also noted that the plane was near the border with Lithuania: “But they turned to Minsk. So it turns out, and the dictator came in handy! "

The airport in Minsk has already been reported that at the moment information about mining has not been confirmed. The “Pool of the First” additionally said that on behalf of Lukashenko, “to support the passenger aircraft to the sky, the MiG-29 fighter was raised.

“The regime threatened the safety of passengers on board and all civil aviation for the sake of reprisal against a person who was the editor of the largest Belarusian independent telegram channels ... We have already reported to the Ryanair office and the international civil aviation organization (ICAO), demanding to start an investigation on the fact of what happened and take measures until the exception of Belarus from ICAO”, - wrote Svetlana Tikhanovskaya after the detention of Protasevich.

NEXTA and NEXTA LIVE channels became popular in Belarus in the wake of protests against Alexander Lukashenko. After the start of mass street shares in August 2020, more than two million people signed up. In November 2020, Roman Protasevich and the founder of Nekhty Stepan Putilo (both at that time already lived in Europe) were included in the Belarusian KGB in the list of individuals involved in terrorist activities. Protasevich and Putilo became the first Belarusians in this list in the entire history of the country. Nexta telegram channel itself and its logo are now recognized as extremist materials in Belarus.

After the detention of Protasevich, information began to spread in social networks that in Belarus he was threatened with the death penalty. The country really provides for a punishment up to the death penalty for terrorist crimes, but at the moment Protasevich (like Putilo) did not charge terrorism. At the same time, the Investigative Committee of Belarushas charged reporters with organizing riots in Minsk and “exciting social hostility” to representatives of the authorities and police. These articles do not imply a death penalty, but provide for long terms of imprisonment: for organizing riots - up to 15 years, for “excitation of enmity” - up to 12. At the same time, Protasevich himself told the flight to other passengers that the death penalty awaits him in Belarus. Other details of the detention are reliably unknown. The state television of Belarus claims that the plane was put not because of Protasevich, and the detention happened like this: “It turned out that he flew with a friend who took his photo on the bus [at the airport] and sent another disgraced blogger. He published a picture in Telegram, and the police responded to information. ”

After the publication, Ryanair reported that the signal about the bomb on board the aircraft came from dispatchers from Minsk

Pavel Merzlikin