June 03, 2021

State-sponsored piracy and hijacking in Belarus

topic:	Political violence
located:	Belarus
editor:	Katarina Panić

‘The end justifies the means’. This is one of the sayings often being connected to totalitarian regimes. For Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, the aim is to maintain the power he reclaimed in 1994. Among many other non-democratic means of crushing opposition, the one that is most widely used is silencing dissidents. Even when they are out of reach, since they have left the country, you may always redirect the plane they are on, force it to land in your territory and arrest them. It is as simple as that.

The recent case of Roman Protasevich has been covered by media worldwide, including the follow-up reports ever since. Protasevich, a 26-year-old Belarusian journalist and opposition activist, played one of the key roles in last year’s demonstration that triggered a brutal response towards the opposition, protesters and media. 

This year alone, many cases of police brutality and about 2,700 prosecutions have been reported. However, the most recent one - dubbed by the Ryanair management “state-sponsored hijacking” and “state-sponsored piracy” - has had international elements involved: an Ireland-based airline and the European Union airspace; more specifically, there are western elements involved.

The EU has progressively imposed restrictive measures against Belarus due to the fraudulent nature of the August 2020 presidential election. Now, the block insists on further targeted economic sanctions. It calls the aspiring countries to behave accordingly. Yet, this attempt hasn’t gone smoothly since Belarus`s main ally is Russia. 

Here comes another saying related to dictatorships: ‘Whoever is not with us is against us’. In this particular case, acting against Belarus became equal to acting against Russia. The polarisation is irresistibly reminiscent of the Cold War period. US President Joe Biden and his Russian colleague Vladimir Putin will have their first face-to-face meeting in Switzerland this month. The Belarus case is on the table, too.

Frightening even for those of us who grew up under the communist regime is the detail of the number of passengers on a Ryanair flight: 126 left Athens, and 121 landed in Vilnius. Aaccording to the media, besides Protasevich and his girlfriend, Sofia Sapega (a Russian citizen who had been arrested as well), the other three missing people could only be secret service agents who left the plane in Minsk, as they had completed their mission. 

To keep the course, this week, Belarus has banned most of its citizens from leaving the country, including many foreigners with residency permits. It seems that the only thing that is missing is the wall.

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