白俄罗斯被指控“劫持”一架民用客机，使用假炸弹威胁迫使一架瑞安航空客机在该国降落，以便当局能够逮捕一名对其独裁领导人亚历山大·卢卡申科的著名批评者。

瑞安航空公司的航班在从雅典飞往立陶宛首都维尔纽斯的途中经过白俄罗斯领空，由于虚假的炸弹威胁，该航班被转移到明斯克紧急降落。一架白俄罗斯米格-29战斗机被派去拦截飞机，并将其护送到机场。在现场，安全人员逮捕了罗曼·普罗塔舍维奇，他是社交媒体新闻频道NEXTA的创始人，NEXTA在20世纪80年代扮演了重要角色去年夏天的抗议。

这一非同寻常的举动引发了欧洲国家的激烈反应，这些国家指责卢卡申科强行击落一架欧洲客机，作为夺取普罗塔舍维奇的预先计划行动的一部分。

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一架瑞安航空公司的波音737-8AS(航班号FR4978)停在明斯克国际机场

欧盟委员会主席乌尔苏拉·冯·德·莱恩称这是“完全不可接受的”，并警告那些对此负有责任的人必须受到制裁。

“白俄罗斯政权令人愤慨的非法行为将会产生后果。对#瑞安航空劫机事件负责的人必须受到制裁。记者罗曼·普罗塔舍维奇必须立即被释放，”冯·德·莱恩在推特上写道，他说周一的欧盟外长会议将讨论采取什么行动。

包括法国和英国在内的其他国家纷纷谴责白俄罗斯的行为，越来越多的人呼吁对卢卡申科采取惩罚性措施。

波兰总理马特奥兹·莫拉维茨基表示，瑞安航空的航班被“劫持”，并谴责这是“应受谴责的国家恐怖主义行为”。爱尔兰总理米歇尔·马丁称这是“前所未有的”，并表示必须在欧盟外长会议上解决。

驻维尔纽斯的美国驻白俄罗斯大使朱莉·费舍尔(Julie Fisher)表示，转移航班是“危险和令人憎恶的”，他说这表明卢卡申科对国际社会的蔑视。

在明斯克停留几个小时后，瑞安航空的航班于周日晚上在维尔纽斯起飞和降落。立陶宛总理在机场迎接抵达的乘客，乘客向当地媒体描述了他们是如何从飞机上下来并被白俄罗斯安全官员搜查的。乘客上传的视频显示，白俄罗斯士兵带着嗅探犬在地上检查他们的行李。

飞机上37岁的立陶宛人拉谢尔·格里高利耶娃(Raselle Grigoryeva)告诉美国广播公司新闻(ABC News)，机组人员没有解释飞机为什么要转向明斯克。她说，当飞机突然急剧下降时，乘客们大吃一惊。

“我们都在飞机上惊慌失措，因为我们认为我们要坠毁了，”她说。“这是一次突然的俯冲，高度变化很大。非常暴力。我在飞机上从未有过这种感觉。每个人都很震惊，”她说。

另一名乘客告诉记者告诉立陶宛新闻网站德尔非突然行动后，他们看到普罗塔塞维奇意识到飞机要去哪里时变得惊慌失措。

“我们问他是怎么回事。他说了那是什么，并补充道，“死刑在这里等着我。”这位未透露姓名的乘客告诉德尔非。他们说，乘客下船后，白俄罗斯安全官员将普罗塔塞维奇拉到一边。”他已经平静了一些，但仍在颤抖。一名警察一直站在他旁边，很快警察就过来把他带走了，”乘客说，据德尔菲说。

格里戈里耶娃说，当白俄罗斯安全官员经历了所谓的炸弹威胁的精心伪装时，其他乘客经历了一场令人精疲力竭的考验。她说，乘客的物品和尸体被搜查，并被放在一个有警卫的小房间里。她说，他们什么也没被告知，并通过焦急地在手机上阅读新闻来了解他们的情况。

“那时我们不知道是否要飞回家。他们把我们当成囚犯，”她说。“所有这些掩饰令人筋疲力尽，非常耗时。我只能称之为马戏团。”

她说，她为普罗塔舍维奇感到非常难过，一些乘客曾讨论过在他被释放之前拒绝重新登机，但他们担心自己也会被捕。

瑞安航空在一份简短的声明中说，白俄罗斯空中交通管制人员告诉飞机转向明斯克，因为“机上存在潜在的安全威胁”。这与白俄罗斯官员声称他们一直在回应飞机的帮助请求相矛盾。

该航空公司表示，飞机在明斯克安全着陆，乘客在进行安全检查时下船，没有发现“任何不愉快”。报道称，大约五个小时后，乘客被允许再次登机，飞机预计将在当地时间下午7点左右起飞。

“瑞安航空已经通知了相关的国家和欧洲安全和安保机构，我们对这一令人遗憾的延误向所有受影响的乘客真诚道歉，这超出了瑞安航空的控制范围，”该航空公司表示。声明中没有提到普罗塔舍维奇。

NEXTA的主编塔德乌什·吉赞(Tadeusz Giczan)声称，白俄罗斯克格勃安全局的特工曾登上飞机，并在他登上雅典机场之前发布了普罗塔舍维奇的信息，他在信中写道，一名他认为是克格勃特工的男子在门口接近了他。乘客格里高利耶娃(Grigoryeva)说，当他们在明斯克重新登机时，至少还有两名乘客失踪，猜测他们可能是特工。

普罗塔舍维奇创建的频道NEXTA是抗议活动的中心去年夏天爆发了反对卢卡申科的运动，其创始人将是该政权的头号反对者。该媒体帮助协调了基本上无领导的示威活动，并发布了示威活动和警察暴力的视频，这些视频有助于催化抗议活动，数十万人和平走上街头，呼吁卢卡申科下台。它和它的姊妹频道NEXTA Live拥有近200万用户。

白俄罗斯当局去年将普罗塔舍维奇列入恐怖主义监视名单，并以组织大规模骚乱和煽动仇恨的罪名对他提起刑事诉讼，这些罪行最高可判处12至15年监禁。白俄罗斯反对派表示，他们担心他现在可能面临死刑。NEXTA总部设在波兰华沙，其办公室受到警方的保护。

他的被捕是卢卡申科政权镇压抗议活动后镇压该国剩余反对派的更广泛努力的一部分。

普罗塔塞维奇在希腊的雅典报道了流亡领袖的一次旅行白俄罗斯民主反对派Svetlana Tikhanovskaya，现居立陶宛。

蒂哈诺夫斯卡娅谴责普罗塔舍维奇被捕，呼吁对事件进行调查，并对卢卡申科政府进行更多制裁。

“卢卡申科(原文如此)政权危及飞机上乘客的生命。从现在起，任何飞越白俄罗斯的人都不会安全。需要国际反应!”她在推特上写道。

 

Ryanair flight forced to land in Belarus with top activist on board

Belarus has been accused of "hijacking" a civilian airliner by forcing a Ryanair passenger flight to land in the country using a fake bomb threat so that authorities could arrest a prominent critic of its authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko.

The Ryanair flight was passing through Belarus' airspace while traveling from Athens to Lithuania's capital, Vilnius, when it was diverted to Minsk for an emergency landing because of the phony bomb threat. A Belarusian MiG-29 fighter jet was sent to intercept the plane and escorted it to the airport. On the ground, security agents arrested Roman Protasevich, founder of the social media news channel NEXTA, which played a crucial role in theprotests last summer.

The extraordinary move triggered a furious reaction from European countries, which have accused Lukashenko of forcing down a European airliner as part of a pre-planned operation to seize Protasevich.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, called it "utterly unacceptable" and warned that those responsible must be sanctioned.

"The outrageous and illegal behaviour of the regime in Belarus will have consequences. Those responsible for the #Ryanair hijacking must be sanctioned. Journalist Roman Protasevich must be released immediately," von der Leyen wrote on Twitter, saying a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday would discuss what actions to take.

Other countries, including France and Britain, lined up to condemn Belarus' actions, and there were mounting calls for punitive steps to be taken against Lukashenko.

Poland's prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki said the Ryanair flight had been "hijacked" and condemned it as a "reprehensible act of state terrorism". Micheál Martin, prime minister of Ireland called it "unprecedented" and said it must be addressed by the EU foreign ministers meeting.

Julie Fisher, the U.S. ambassador to Belarus who is based in Vilnius, said the diversion of the flight was "dangerous and abhorrent," saying it showed Lukashenko's contempt for the international community.

After several hours in Minsk, the Ryanair flight took off and landed in Vilnius on Sunday evening. Lithuania's prime minister was at the airport to meet the arriving passengers, who described to local media how they disembarked from the plane and were searched by Belarusian security officials. Videos posted by passengers showed Belarusian soldiers with sniffer dogs examining their luggage on the ground.

Raselle Grigoryeva, a 37 year-old Lithuanian on the plane told ABC News that the crew had not explained why the plane was being diverted to Minsk. She said the passengers were caught by surprise when the plane suddenly plunged sharply.

"We all on the plane had panicked because we thought we were going to crash," she said. "This was a sudden dive, changing the altitude very drastically. It was very violent. I've never felt this on an airplane. Everybody was in shock," she said.

Another passenger toldtold the Lithuanian news site Delfithat after the sudden maneuver, they saw Protasevich become panicked as he realized where the plane was headed.

"We asked him what was going on. He said what it was and added, 'The death penalty awaits me here.'," the unnamed passenger told Delfi. They said Belarusian security officers pulled Protasevich aside after the passengers were disembarked. "He was already calmer, but trembling. An officer was standing next to him all the time, and soon the officers just came and took him away," the passenger said, according to Delfi.

Grigoryeva said the other passengers then endured a draining ordeal as Belarusian security officials went through with the elaborate charade of the alleged bomb threat. The passengers had their belongings and bodies searched, she said, and were placed in a small room with guards. They were told nothing, she said, and learnt about their situation by anxiously reading the news on their phones.

"We didn't know if we were going to fly home then. They were keeping us as prisoners," she said. "All this cover up was exhausting it was very time-consuming. I can call it only a circus."

She said she felt very sorry for Protasevich and that some passengers had discussed refusing to re-board the plane until he was released, but they feared they too might be arrested.

Ryanair, in a short statement, said the plane was told to divert to Minsk by Belarusian air traffic control because of a "potential security threat on-board." That contradicted claims by Belarusian officials that they had been responding to a request for help from the aircraft.

The airline said the plane landed safely in Minsk and passengers disembarked while security checks were carried out and that "nothing untoward" was found. It said passengers were allowed to board the plane again after around five hours and that the plane was expected to take off around 7 p.m. local time.

"Ryanair has notified the relevant national and European safety and security agencies and we apologize sincerely to all affected passengers for this regrettable delay, which was outside Ryanair's control," the airline said. It made no mention of Protasevich in the statement.

Tadeusz Giczan, editor-in-chief of NEXTA, alleged that agents from Belarus' KGB security service had been onboard the flight and posted messages from Protasevich before he boarded in Athens where he wrote a man he believed to be an undercover KGB agent had approached him at the gate. Grigoryeva, the passenger, said that when they re-boarded the flight in Minsk at least two other passengers were missing, speculating they might have been agents.

NEXTA, the channel founded by Protasevich, was central to the proteststhat broke out against Lukashenko last summer, and its founders would be among the regime's most-wanted opponents. The outlet helped coordinate the largely leaderless demonstrations and published videos of them and police violence that helped catalyze the protests, which saw hundreds of thousands peacefully take to the streets calling for Lukashenko to step down. It and its sister channel NEXTA Live have close to 2 million subscribers.

Belarus' authorities placed Protasevich on a terrorism watchlist last year and have opened criminal cases against him on charges of organizing mass riots and inciting hatred, offenses that carry sentences of up to 12 to 15 years in prison. Belarus' opposition have said they fear he could now face the death penalty. NEXTA is based in Warsaw, Poland, where its offices are kept under police protection.

His seizure is part of a broader effort by Lukashenko's regime to crush remaining opposition in the country after smothering the protests.

Protasevich had been in Athens, Greece, reporting on a trip by the exiled leader ofBelarus' democracy opposition, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who is now based in Lithuania.

Tikhanovskaya condemned Protasevich's arrest, calling for an investigation into the incident and more sanctions on Lukashenko's government.

"Lukashenka's [sic] regime endangered the lives of passengers onboard the plane. From now -- no one flying over Belarus -- can be secure. International reaction needed!" she wrote on Twitter.