So while we know who “someone” is and that it’s all planned in advance (the journalist reported that he was followed minutes before take-off), technically speaking the safety protocols were followed, and when landed they arrested a wanted man once he was on their soil.
This reminds me of force landing Bolivian president’s plane in the EU flying from Moscow when they thought Edward Snowden was on the plane.
https://onemileatatime.com/bomb-threat-el-al-787-fighter-jet...
It should be considered and questioned, but it may not be nefarious.
The article doesn't say that the bomb threat claim came from anyone on the plane. Rather, it implies the pilots were informed of the alleged threat by Belarus air traffic control as the pretext for demanding that the plane divert.
Based on the current facts being reported, it seems pretty clear what is going on here.
Plane crew change squawk code to intercepted (7700) not 7500 which would indicate terrorist act.
What happened is clear even before crew and passengers start giving press interviews in Vilnius.
And please do not compare it to Bolivian case, then crew decided (to land) and was not put under duress by fighter plane.
https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/squawking-7700-in-flight-...
This is exactly what Belarus just did. The US and it's allies are now strongly objecting that it's illegal and improper to do exactly what they've previously done.
The idea of mutually agreeing to allow commercial transportation aircraft to transit your airspace is supposed to be that this is not done. It is hugely hypocritical for the US to have used this same tactic, even if done through proxies.
Yep, unsophisticated peasants tend to use more force than experienced urbanites. Dreadful, don't you know.
The radio words to use are standardised so they even work in case one side doesn't speak English. The signals are also very simple (rock wings, certain turns, gear up/down).
No need to think about being shot down or not, no need to scare, any commercial flight being intercepted would follow directions.
Did he get on their soil though? Usually, you stay in the international zone when between flights, so, here, the passengers should not have entered Belarus. Do we know what happened in the airport?
for example, when US agents capture people outside US and load them on a plane to bring in to US they actually formally arrest and charge them only when the plane enters US airspace.
To be clear, I don’t think pilots should be in a position to judge the truthfulness of ATF or the government they’re flying over and I don’t think pilot judgment is the “solution” to this loophole that has now been abused twice (that we know). I’m just curious about the process and what would happen if a pilot decided to call the bluff. Would Belarus (or whichever country) scramble fighter jets to force a landing? Would the pilot get in trouble? Is the answer different for a private flight vs commercial flight vs diplomatic flight?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident
Clearly what happened here is that the fake bomb threat was an excuse, and the purpose of the interceptor there was to demonstrate to the crew of the airplane that the use of force was a possibility. This plane was "forced down" by any reasonable use of the term.
> This reminds me of force landing Bolivian president’s plane in the EU flying from Moscow when they thought Edward Snowden was on the plane.
Had to correct this elsewhere: there was no forced landing there at all. They were denied airspace privileges to cross most of western europe, which isn't the same thing at all. They landed in a friendly-ish nation, and were never boarded by anyone hostile or otherwise intercepted by law enforcement.
What happened in the Snowden case was DIPLOMACY ("you may not travel here if you carry this man"), not force.
And MiG-29 sprinkled same kind of diplomacy here - they weren't shot down, they just were diplomatically notified that in their best interest is to land down. See, no force, pure diplomacy.
To be clear, I highly despise the Belarusian regime and I'm in full support of opposition. I could only hope that EU will do something in return but it looks like it's a standard way of handling the people politically considered to be terrorists. It's not the way it should be done neither by Belarus nor especially by US/NATO if they want to hold the peacekeepers flag. Otherwise it's just double standards and politics.
What did happen was that countries caved to US pressure to deny even the possibility of snowden passing through their airspace.
While that's absurd and a rather impolite thing to do; the moral issue there small or non-existant; denying a foreign diplomatic delegation the right to enter your territory is... perfectly OK, even when your motivations are at best dubious.
The fact that the plane even landed in Vienna at all might have been a (successful) PR stunt, since: An audio tape was subsequently released which appeared to be a recording of the flight crew requesting to land in Austria on the grounds they "could not get a correct indication" of their remaining fuel levels." - really? How convenient.
In any case it's nothing at all like the current case, except that it involved planes landing where they weren't originally headed for, due to political interference. Of course; superficial resemblances might be enough in the battlefield that is public perception.
Edit: and if you read some of the other perceptions here e.g. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/07/03... - this all sounds like a rather convenient storm in a tea-cup. Given the convenience to Evo Morales, it all looks rather suspicious.
In the end both the US and Belarus grounded a plane for political reasons, and that’s what makes the situation the same in many people’s eyes. It’s just that one of those countries doesn’t have the clout to make its means look harmless and benign so had to resort to a fighter jet escort.
https://www.reuters.com/article/mundo-bolivia-espanha-descul...
I don't see anything wrong with interfering with the travel of fugitives from justice. Even if there are doubts about the "justice" getting applied here, just ignoring the US justice system is probably not the right way to go either.
I'm glad you've declared this, I was worried that there was a moral component I had to think about.
Yes, the fuel was a problem since they were were barred from going their intended route! They chose to land in Vienna??
It's almost like a number of countries suddenly refused permission to travel through their airspace, making them need exact fuel measurements rather than relying on preflight planning.
Hence forced to land in Vienna.
The how only matters to questions of legality, not questions of morality.
Yes, or no - should airplanes in flight be forced down so that third-party countries can make political arrests? The EU seems to think that the answer to that question is 'Yes'... As long as it's done by it, not to it.
Now that the plane has arrived at the intended destination (Vilnius), it was missing two Belarusian citizens (Protasevich, and presumably his girlfriend who was on the flight has also been arrested) and four Russian citizens. There are some rumors that those four people were trailing Protasevich before the flight and were involved in the 'bomb threat', so it might as well have been a common Belarussion-Russian operation, but as of now it's all just guesses and speculation, perhaps tomorrow we'll have better info.
Russia benefits politically, too - sanctions will be imposed by the West now, driving Belarus closer to Russia.
It underscored that with the support of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Mr. Lukashenko is prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to repress dissent....
In Russia — where the state media described last year’s uprising against Mr. Lukashenko as a Western plot — the arrest met with approval among Mr. Putin’s supporters. Margarita Simonyan, editor of the pro-Kremlin RT television network, wrote on Twitter that Mr. Lukashenko “played it beautifully.” And Vyacheslav Lysakov, a member of Parliament allied with Mr. Putin, described Mr. Protasevich’s arrest as a “brilliant special operation.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/23/world/europe/ryanair-bela...
Not that it was right, but still quite a difference.
If you want to argue that there is no difference between an authoritarian state like Belarusa and Russia and the United States in the way they pursue and prosecute those that threaten the state, then go for it, but I'm not buying it.
On the other hand, this hijacking probably took everyone off-guard. They also didn't divert the plane because of a wanted individual but they made up a fake reason. This is piracy/hijacking plain and simple.
But above all, I don't understand why you think you have any right whatsoever to tell others which governments are good or bad for them.
And to all those who tell "we must react", ask yourself if you are prepared to die for "democracy in Belorussia". Because this is where it might end if you don't uderstand that the only place you do have the right to choose the government for is your "land of the free". So called , that is.
You should be very careful making statements like this. The United States jumped into two world wars that were thousands of miles away from its shores - and those were in periods of history when "isolationism" was considered a popular virtue.
Generally speaking, Americans are judgmental, moralistic, and bloodthisrty. This can be a force for good and/or evil.
The Belarus plane hijack is a small reminder why it's generally not a good idea to let governments know who is going to where. I'm not sure why governments that like to think of themselves as democratic don't see the risks.
-- Alexander Bochmann https://mastodon.infra.de/@galaxis/106285985254850170
I'd made a similar point following the assassination of Kim Jung-nam in 2017:
Travel and hospitality databases are widely accessible and shared amongst a tremendous number of organisations. State intelligence organisations might readily have access through their own state-run airline, or through private operations or plants within same. Similarly for terrorist, narco-criminal, money-laundering, or other organisations. Financial, banking, and payment-processing systems, only slightly less so. A P.I. license or position on a fraud or abuse desk at a major online retailer, or any skip-tracing agency, can have access to such information.
https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5ud243/data_ar...
What is your threat model?
Note that your own threat model may not include possibilities which put others at risk.
(In fairness, it appear that Protasevich was followed onto the plane itself, suggesting that in-flight availability of manifests played little role. The question of what pre-flight intelligence methods were employed remains open.)
Can anyone with FAA / CAA (the UK civil aviation authority) or EU airspace rules knowledge clarify what protocols exist for these situations?
And most countries will probably just refuse overflight privileges if they don't get that information.
This is absolutely true. No mater what, there WILL be abuse.
It's also what worries me most about the normalization of "COVID passports". What's to stop me from putting a bounty on the owner of COVIDpass abcxyz? All you'll have to do is use an alternate scanning app and upload a video of you suckerpunching the owner of COVIDpass abcxyz to receive a 5k prize.
Edit: for improved discourse as pointed out
Information is not power, information is a power multiplier. It enables actions (including attacks and defences) to be specifically focused and targeted.
In the case of Kim Jung-nam, two women (by all accounts innocent accomplices) managed to kill a significant political target in what they thought wasn an entertainment prank by splashing him with liquid, on the ground, at an airport.
Critical to the success of that attack was not access to supersonic military jet fighter aircraft, but simply knowing where and when the target would be in a specified location.
Information that's now broadcast to accuracy of centimetres and seconds on many hundreds of millions if not billions of people worldwide right now.
To give another example I've noted previously, what rights to privacy should a rhinocerous have?
https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/25ll1v/does_a_...
these are very different capabilities. the former is limited to state actors the latter can be found out by any Amadeus employee without any security clearance. the only way to avoid this is not to fly or use a passport that isn't in your name.
if one were to speculate it is likely not even Belarus that made this happen.
it is pretty standard practice in case of a bomb threat around the world as no one knows where the bomber(s) would force the plane to fly to :
https://abcnews.go.com/US/16s-scrambled-escort-jets-bomb-thr...
"An apparent bomb threat against two passenger flights that was tweeted today resulted in two F-16 fighter jets being scrambled to escort the two airliners.
The two flights were both enroute to Hartsfeld-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, where they landed safely NORAD said."
Of course this is a very convenient coincidence here that a random emergency happens with a wanted man in board...
A similar situation from a few weeks ago.
they will send a strongly worded letter, no doubt about it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
Not that the US was wrong to be on high alert:
The EU has shown no determination to put a brake on Lukashenko's abuses and has been completely passive so far on the matter.
The USA, in my opinion, should show leadership and step in to make it clear that such affront against democracy on a neighbour of its closest allies will not be tolerated. Poland and Hungary (not to mention Turkey a bit further away) are already leaning dangerously close to the kinds of abuse of power only seen in dictatorships, and letting Belarus get away with this international provocation will just make it even more clear that the great powers don't care enough to defend democratic rights anywhere outside their own borders, and they are free to go ahead with their own crackdowns on freedom of expression and disregard of human rights.
[1] https://emerging-europe.com/news/belarus-shuts-down-largest-...
The US is rarely interested in affronts against democracy unless there's a geopolitical advantage to be had by leveraging it.
From a practical standpoint, US interventions almost always make things worse for the people who live there, and in a lot of cases less democratic.
Edit: just to clarify, some of the USA’s other considerations would be the risk of getting called out for being a hypocrite- it has done a few shady extraditions in the past.
Is Lukashenko a dictator, for sure, but he is in an impossible situation. The Russians are making sure of that and as long as Western Governments show an indifference to the sovereignty of countries like Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, etc there is no way forward.
The USA showed leadership when it contrived a situation where the president of Bolivia's plane was made to land in Austria, to search for someone who leaked to journalists that the US government was monitoring virtually all domestic phone calls, texts, Internet connections etc.
Leadership in an affront against democracy, as you put it.
Could they not draw the same conclusion from our very pro trade friendly policies toward for example China?
Please show me examples in Poland or Hungary of opposition voices being silenced or arrested.
The worst that has happened is withdrawing government financing or grants to entities that aren’t pro government. That’s not exactly a dictatorship.
In Hungary almost all the online press is anti government. No one gets arrested. Their are 5 opposition parties now uniting against government, no one is silenced.
Yes the state TV is pro government. But this is not unique to Poland or Hungary. In fact I’d argue the pinnacle of state TV, the BBC is very much leaning to one side of the political isle right now too.
Regimes like that change only when forced by violence or credible threats of violence in their territory - actual power, not "soft power", it will change only because of large quantities of people in Belarus/Minsk actually make the change happen (as opposed to just asking for change). Looking around, who might make such a change?
1. Western countries definitely won't do that in Belarus, a boots-on-the-ground invasion like that seems totally implausible and would risk escalation into a military conflict with Russia, it's just not going to happen;
2. The Belarus opposition decided to explicitly avoid trying anything and limit their activities to nonviolent protests - last year there were some moments where perhaps they had a chance to overthrow the regime if they tried, but now the regime has succeeded in repressing the opposition (partly through acts like in this article), they can't rally masses as much anymore, so no chances in the short term;
3. Russia has no need to do that, they seem to be satisfied with the current direction and whatever deals they made;
4. Internally, the regime seems stable. Last year perhaps there were some questions on whether all structures of power would support Lukashenka, but that seems to be over for now - but IMHO this is the only thing that can change the country's direction, if the regime stays unified, Lukashenka will get away with all of this (and, most likely, escalate it) for a decade or more easily, the existing regime is stuck and can't change (since as soon as they loosen the grip, they'll end up like Gaddafi), but if a "court coup" happens, they might change the direction.
So all that's on the table is complaining loudly and sanctions that aren't going to be effective in the short term. I mean, the only way how sanctions can work is if they make the economic situation dire enough so that Belarus people actually do revolt, until that, the regime will make sure that the siloviki get their share of the dwindling funds and it won't change their behavior as that behavior is now required for their self-preservation.
I don't disagree with your conclusion, but I just don't understand why so many trillions of dollars around the world are being spent on military power that just sits by and watches dictatorships kidnap protestors from other countries and execute them.
Having grown up in the early 2000s and seen some offensively transparent excuses to start military invasions, surely this is a far more justifiable reason for conflict. Is everyone just waiting for Lukashenko and Putin to die and hoping that their successors won't be as maniacal?
Why so?
NATO completely towers over Belorus army. It has only a single airbase — Minsk, and all its air defence for this city only.
More importantly, it's military is critically short of skilled manpower, just like is Russian army (having more vehicles than pilots for them.)
Belarus triggering a defence treaty with Russia? Pffff, he can trigger it upon his own head, as did Armenia.
Russia will not come when faced with credible force.
> but now the regime has succeeded in repressing the opposition (partly through acts like in this article), they can't rally masses as much anymore, so no chances in the short term;
Any government in the world can be overthrown by a popular revolt. Any.
If you think about things seriously, and reject useless sentimentalism, using power starts make sense.
A very obvious benefit of doing so, is that it is the quickest, and easiest way to discredit defeatist voices.
There is a huge difference between diverting an international flight and terrorising one’s own citizens. The latter is a humanitarian crisis. The former is a threat to me and my family. That’s a material difference.
At the very least, Belarusian air space and air access rights should be curtailed. It would also be reasonable to scramble NATO assets to protect those airways.
I am not claiming that such things should be left with no response. In fact, I suspect this might hasten Lukashenko's downfall (quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi), but he is just taking a page from the "western civilization" playbook. My 2c.
I wonder what would have happened if they just delayed until they were in lithuanian airspace.
EDIT: just realized there were fighter jets involved...
Might be a good way to start a war.
The aircraft's registration is SP-RSM, which is Polish:
* https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/fr4978#27cce9a2
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_registration_...
Poland is a member of NATO. Also, Lithuania and Greece, the source and destination of the flight, are also both in NATO.
Detain every single passenger for rest of the year.
And there flights weren't even officially targeted. This flight was intercepted by an armed military jet. From there it can quickly escalate in the event of a misunderstanding.
Qatar was doing massive detours a couple of years ago to keep flying (of course money wasn't an issue for them)
But detouring Bielorussia might be even cheaper than forced landings, who knows.
How long the democratic nations of Europe permit an autocratic regime in their bosom is an open question…if I was Belarus I’d keep my fucking head down.
The thing about a destabilised world order is that it works both ways.
Which is a good thing, War rarely turns out well.
An appropiate reaction would be to stop overflights of Belarus - which both eliminates the risk of Belarus forcing down civilian planes, and reduces Belarussian income
Not to mention that Russia is no doing very well themselves.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/16/eu-hungary-vet...
Maybe it took 30 years to become obvious to you but at least you got it - sadly that happened only when you ended being on a receiving end.
There have been autocratic regimes in the region throughout recorded history. It's the "democratic nations of Europe" bit which is novel. I guess gentle pressure will be applied and hopefully when Lukashenko and Putin die or otherwise go we'll get someone more reasonable.
"The @Ryanair flight took off just now from Minsk bound for Vilnius. Great news for everyone especially the families and friends of people onboard."
https://twitter.com/AdinaValean/status/1396513415007506432
"Everyone"??
The omissive wording is utterly revolting. While the Ryanair PR people were at it they could’ve taken it a small step forward and said that a few passengers decided to stay as they really enjoyed the sights.
No refunds for anyone...
Nothing can finish off a corporate announcement better than a Liability Avoidance and Risk Reduction statement :)
I haven't tried to find the actual flight path, but for a transport aircraft at cruise the "closest airport" would not be underneath the flight's position, but rather at some distance away corresponding to the computed distance to reach the surface in an idle power descent.¹
From 30,000+ feet I'd expect that value to lie around 60–80 miles, iirc.
/Acey
¹–ignoring in-flight fires, medical emergencies, etc., that might dictate an unusually steep descent profile.
>"This was a case of state-sponsored hijacking - state-sponsored piracy," Michael O'Leary told Newstalk radio.
>"It appears the intent of the authorities was to remove a journalist and his travelling companion. We believe there were some KGB (State Security Committee of the Republic of Belarus) agents offloaded at the airport as well,"
It's not, your kettle is also black.
Literally yesterday prime minister went on record to say they will outright ignore the ruling of the highest EU court on an ecological / energy case (lignite mining close to the Czech border.
As a result, the EU tries to sanction Poland, but Hungary won't agree and so the sanction fails. Try to sanction Hungary? Poland is out, sanction fails. I have to admit that it's clever on Poland and Hungary's part, as it lets them selectively ignore some of the EU's more (from their perspective) overbearing rulings.
In turn, this will further embolden putin / lukashenko gang to bigger and more outrageous acts. This gang understands only force. Something like a rocket killing a top government official, or seizure of assets.
(I say this as a Russian citizen who was recently detained by the police at an anti-Putin protest)
If this event doesn't lead to something significant, it would once more fail at points 2,3,5, and 6 of its core values[0]. As a EU citizen I'm hoping for the long-term success of the EU but not always very confident in it..
All the best to you, particularly courage and luck in the face of what you have to deal with locally..
[0] https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/eu-in-brief_en
Worst possible choice. Even without taking international costs, it will be best day for propaganda and thus elite. And perfect feed for ultra-nationalistic movements - so even if manages to produce change in government, it will be second Iran, not second Poland.
>seizure of assets
Best one. After enough mansions are seized and comfortable retirements destroyed, couple of skulls will get caved by a snuffbox and all the geopolitics garbage will be thrown out of the window. With following power struggle, that might even be second chance to form sane government.
If Democracy is to survive, we have to do better analysis.
Total export sanctions to the west? They sell some fuel etc. and EU is a large trading partner.
- Recognize Tsikhanouskaya government as interim government in exile. Insist that this government is the official venue for any engagement (exports, imports, sport event participation).
- Ban all regime officials in all branches from entry.
/s
Europe to SE-Asia almost always involves flying over quite a few 'problematic' areas.
edit: why is this being downvoted? Certain countries have harsh drug laws and couldn't care less whether the use is legitimate or not. Even if you don't have any medication on you, but you have metabolites you can get yourself in prison. This should be called out, but it seems like people have succumbed to prohibitionist propaganda.
This more mild strategy worked perfectly: Lukashenko gets to execute a political threat on trumped up charges, and there's essentially zero risk of a reprisal other than further sanctions, which were going to happen anyhow.
This is one of the reasons why I wish US/NATO had taken a stronger stand vs Russia's hybrid warfare tactics.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/1161646/greek-foreign-mini...
https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1396566441370001413
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.
EUCO will discuss tomorrow action to take.
PS: Which also brings to mind the downed Malaysian flight when flying over Russian-friendly Ukraine. I hope that airlines also have these areas in their no-fly lists.
Not quite the same, of course (no third-party country involved and passenger in question was released shortly thereafter), but forcing commercial airliners to land seems to be somewhat more common than I thought.
> They were only 50km from their destination country's airspace
Just in case, Kyiv is like 75km from Belarusian border
The Ryanair diversion is a straight-up airplane hijacking.
* https://www.wing.com.ua/images/stories/library/ovd/9433.pdf
So I guess the Belarus government would try to claim whatever agreement caused this part:
>1.2.1 Pilots-in-command of civil aircraft should be aware that interception may take place in the event that military,customs or police authorities of a State:
>...
>d) suspect that an aircraft is engaged in illegal flight and/or transportation of illicit goods or persons, inconsistent withthe aims of the Chicago Convention and contrary to the laws of said State.
>...
I note there there is nothing in there about a bomb threat. So the bomb threat was likely a separate gambit that didn't work.
This seems to be quite insane either way. If an interception goes bad the result could be the destruction of the civil aircraft. Not worth the potential risk, no matter who might be on the flight.
If the pilot didn't I doubt they'd actually shoot the plane down, but that's a bet that they took and won. The pilot obviously chose the safer option for himself and almost everyone onboard.
I mean it is obviously very bad to make false bomb threats, but its still very different than forcing by threatening to shoot the plane down.
Minsk Control: FR4978 please divert immediately to Minsk due to potential bomb threat.
FR4978: Minsk Control, by our readings we are closer to our destination Vilnius than to Minsk. By the way, can you explain why a Belarusian fighter jet is flying alongside us?
(silence)
FR4978: Minsk Control, do you copy?
(silence)
Minsk Control: We said PLEASE.
(silence)
FR4978: Ohhh-kay then. Minsk it is!
* https://www.icao.int/pages/freedomsair.aspx
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedoms_of_the_air
Note that Belarus is not a signatory to the International Air Services Transit Agreement (IASTA):
* https://www.icao.int/secretariat/legal/list%20of%20parties/t...
Neither is Lithuania, but Greece is.
Of course Lukashenko has the backing of Putin, so it is a slippery slope. I wonder how the EU will react. This is a major transgression.
Note that the EU did something similar: The forced Evo Morales to land in Vienna (on a flight from Moskow to Bolivia) because they suspected Snowden on the flight.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/1161646/greek-foreign-mini...
Similar to an embassy, the onboard territory is based on which country the aircraft is registered to.
In the previous cases, the aircrew assured those people they’re in charge of them.
So this seems to be a diplomatic incident with Ireland?
Two differences though. - low cost company, maybe aircrew are less knowledgeable. - bomb alert.
https://www.belta.by/president/view/komandu-prinjat-v-minske...
Of course, it could be much more straightforward than that (it could just be that Belarus did this for their own reasons). But it’s interesting to think about.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1954/12/13/archives/syrian-airliner-... [2] https://www.wrmea.org/1994-november-december/israel-was-firs... [3] https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/essays/rokach.html
https://twitter.com/TadeuszGiczan/status/1396446650718117890
But if you put that aside for a moment and look at things from a higher level perspective: the president of a whole country is SO AFRAID OF A SINGLE YOUNG BLOGGER that he redirects a whole plane, thereby doing a "full Barbara" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect).
Never say one person cannot change the world!
This was an attack on Lithuania, Greece and Ireland.
How many more times will western governments bend over as Putin and other tin pot soviet dicktators shoot down or hijack flights?
Denying entry into airspace is not the same as forcing a plane to land and kidnapping a political opponent.
Isn't it common that flights to Canada need to make an emergency landing which conveniently allows US customs to filter passengers?
Diverting planes seems something that states just do.
This time it's a smaller state that uses big boy tools.
Link?
The tech community is brilliant in some things but hopelessly naive in others.
Also, people everywhere on television seem to agree with your views, confirms your godlike logical thinking powers. All hail moneys!
- Flight EU to EU
- fake bomb threat
- possibly forced to divert to minsk airport by a fighter jet (wasn't the nearest airport)
- potential death penalty for targeted journalist
It seems nowadays any people acquiring power in a smaller country can only care about keeping this power, and nothing else.
And any revolutionary movement against dictators in these smaller countries can only hope for the replacement of one oppressive regime with another potentially more oppressive regime.
It's a lose-lose situation. And it makes me extremely sad.
Databases of every person flying internationally with passport numbers in last 10 years, or so years go around on onion websites.
Thank your "antiterrorism" STAZI, and its well wishers.
Interesting framing
https://jamestown.org/program/the-wagner-affair-in-belarus-a...
https://censor.net/ru/news/3266959/butusov_lukashenko_primen...
https://en.thepage.ua/news/bellingcat-is-making-a-film-about...
[0] - https://www.britannica.com/topic/law-of-war/Legally-defining...
To be clear, I highly despise the Belarusian regime and I'm in full support of opposition. I could only hope that EU will do something in return but it looks like it's a standard way of handling the people politically considered to be terrorists. It's not the way it should be done neither by Belarus nor especially by US/NATO if they want to hold the peacekeepers flag. Otherwise it's just double standards and politics.
