Belarus used a fake bomb threat to justify sending a fighter jet to intercept Ryanair flight FR4978 from Athens to Vilnius, Lithuania – and force it to land in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. Once on the ground, they entered the aircraft to grab an opposition journalist that had been living in exile.
And Ryanair did not even show outrage. Instead they whitewashed the incident, claiming there was little inconvenience to passengers and refused to recognize that one of their customers had been the victim of a snatch and grab.
Ryanair has quite literally airbrushed Roman Protasevich from the record. It says "nothing untoward" took place and the aircraft departed Minsk "with passengers & crew" – neglecting to mention that one passenger was kidnapped & taken away. https://t.co/IEP1YWep6e
— Liz Sly (@LizSly) May 23, 2021
I know Ryanair’s signature is bad customer service but WTF
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) May 23, 2021
Or maybe journalist Roman Protasevich just didn’t pay Ryanair’s little-known rendition exclusion fee?
€10 if you pre-pay online, €25 at the airport, and €100 million on arrival in Minsk. https://t.co/KEPjMFhoZW
— gary leff (@garyleff) May 23, 2021
Well you do the crime..
The “journalist” had warrants out in Belarus for coordinating protests against the gov’t via his Telegram account. I wonder if Gary would be as outraged if an organizer of the Capitol Hill riot was arrested.
@tim
What crime?
@gino
What is wrong with coordinating protests?
I’m sure there was an enemy of the State onboard MH17. Therefore shooting it down was justified?
@Gino You can’t compare the two. That’s silly. Protesting is a form of free speech and assembly, upheld by the declaration of human rights points 19 and 20. You refer the Capitol Hill riots as… well, riots. There is no universal declaration of human rights that protects the right to riot. Therefore, arresting a rioter is a lot less outrageous than arresting a protestor. You can’t compare the two. With that said, @Tim it is a lot more ambiguous whether or not there is a “crime” that has warranted the journalist to do the time.
@Gino. Last time I checked he never stormed the essential political framework of Belarus with armed insurgents, killed officers, and demanded to take control of the Government. But you just go on with your comparisons and making a complete fool of yourself.
@Gino. Ridiculous. Belarus is the last dictatorship in Europe, more akin to North Korea than to the United States. It makes Russia look like paradise by comparison. It has been ruled with an iron fist for decades since the end of the Soviet Union.
This guy was just organizing some protests. As small-d democrats we should all support efforts toward democracy and towards toppling a dictator.
@Doug – just looking for consistency. Riots are bad when they happen in DC, but the highest expression of democracy when they happen in capitals not aligned with US.
@Stuart – so your logic is not to hold the organizers responsible, only the “foot soldiers.” Law enforcement doesn’t usually share that view.
@Gino Well, if that’s your argument, Trump is a free man playing golf. As is Giuliani and the rest of them. So, yeah, apparently that’s how we roll these days. Any other questions?
@Gus Right, because the toppling of dictators in Libya, Syria and Iraq went/or is going so well and did not require US taxpayers to foot the bill for their new found prosperity? As @jedipenguin wrote in the previous post on this topic, none of our business.
@Stuart – perhaps you’re right, USG is taking it easy on them, but investigations take years. Trump had the impeachment thing and didn’t Giuliani have search warrants executed recently. https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases Looks like they’re going after all of them, looking at that docket.
@Gino Lukashenka actually did steal the election (google “administrative resource” if you want to know how it’s done in real life, as opposed to trumpist fairy tales), so yeah, the protests in Belarus were indeed the highest expression of democracy, and the journalists working to support those protests are the good guys in the book of pretty much any reasonable pro-democracy person.
You should have stopped yourself from commenting the moment you realized you were about to support a dictatorship. Never a good position to take, no matter the circumstances.
@Max – just pointing out US and Ukraine did the same thing with grounding planes. All the rest is a peculiar reading of history is it ignores US support for dictators it likes.
@Gino – there is a difference between grounding a plane (preventing it from taking off) and forcing it down with a fighter jet, with a made-up bomb threat, when it is just flying over your country. The former is legal, the latter is illegal.
The EU is rather weak militarily (despite France’s army), or it would retaliate forcefully. The plane was traveling between two EU countries and was forced down by a fighter jet – that’s a hostile military act.
Your other points are just moral relativism and reflect a lack of understanding of recent history. I’m against the military adventures in Iraq too. But supporting a dictator is morally unacceptable.
@gary, I suggest you apologize or the next time you’re over a foreign country, they may put you in a potato sack and carry you away. 😛
The guy who was taken away was clearly being watched, to the extent that the spooks knew which flight he was on. They were a bit slow because the intercept happened almost as the plane was leaving their airspace (see the flight path).
@Gus – the groundings that occured due to US and Ukraine also involved planes that were already in air. Ukrainian air traffic controller also threatened the civilian plane with fighter jets but didn’t need to actually scramble them. So the main difference is a fake bomb threat vs no excuse at all to force a plane to land. No worries about me supporting any dictators, whether or not they’re aligned with US. Just helping outraged Gary by providing balance to his posts.
Well first off Ryanair lied about what happened in their statement. Second off I find it pathetic the people who think it was appropriate to divert a commercial flight with fighter jets so that some dictator can target a political enemy especially when the flight neither took off from or was landing in their country. Absolutely pathetic.
Gino is full of today’s Republican philosophy, reminds me of Nixon..”It’s not a crime if the president does it..” aka Trump. If that journalist is killed will he still be saying stupid things like “If you can’t do the time…”
This is the logical conclusion of the idiotic “if you see something …”
Anonymous reports that are taken seriously are a serious issue. Now governments know how to do it too, but since it is anonymous …
And once again, View from the Wing descends into an ugly, hateful place. Nice job, people. Sigh…
This is not about Gino. His statements are clearly moronic. It’s an outrage to fake a bomb scare and use that to force down aninternational flight looking for the closest airport to land and evacuate the crew and passengers to get at a journalist critic. . Every flyer should be outraged at this act of terrorist piracy by an autocrat . Watch the copycats now.
@Doug – you can’t apply US rights of speech and to protest to foreign governments. It is illegal in many countries to protest or otherwise undermine the current regime. Agree forcing the plane down is horrible but he broke the laws of his country and had a warrant outstanding for his arrest. Just because US law would grant him certain rights and protections that has absolutely no standing in Belarus or many other countries.
Belarus should be taught a very harsh lesson. You cannot just make up a crisis and ground a commercial airliner when it is flying in accordance to international aviation rules. Time to launch a major cyber attack in Belarus? Maybe a lesson they would not soon forget? if you read the news you will notice that IED’s also seem to be effective attention-getters.
@DFWSteve There is no need to escalate the situation with violence. That mostly impacts the innocent civilian population.
Instead just give them the extreme cold shoulder. No landing rights for their national airline. No flights allowed into or over their country. Suspended travel rights for anyone attached to their government. Block all exports of non-essentials to the country. Withdraw diplomats stationed there and expel diplomats stationed here. Make it a crime to do any form of business there. Make sustained PR attacks on a global scale so they become international outcasts. Treat their friends the same way. The list goes on.
In addition make it easy for their scientists, engineers and other highly educated individuals to find refuge and employment abroad, thus helping the economic decline of the country.
In essence treat them like North Korea.
I can’t judge Ryanair’s response without first knowing how much business they do with Belarus, and how many of their flights will have to continue flying over Belarussian air. I mean.. They are a business, and have no real power here. I can forgive them the candy coated response.
As a regular citizen however – This was beyond fucked up. Wrong and unprecedented on every level, and it shouldn’t matter what your political persuasion is. If the EU don’t step up to defend their member states, they deserve multiple future “Brexits”
@Pete, you got it right–hit ’em where it hurts. The wallet.
@pete @KimmieA ‘treat them like North Korea’. Hmmm. North Korea. How’s that worked out?
The flight was minutes from the Lithuanian border. The pilot should just have said, “If you say we have a problem, I can get this airplane on the ground a lot sooner at Vilnius. We are continuing there.”