{"id":3382,"date":"2021-05-25T13:56:23","date_gmt":"2021-05-25T13:56:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/?p=3382"},"modified":"2021-05-25T14:01:58","modified_gmt":"2021-05-25T14:01:58","slug":"the-forced-landing-of-flight-fr4978","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/2021\/05\/25\/the-forced-landing-of-flight-fr4978\/","title":{"rendered":"The forced landing of flight FR4978."},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"post-content clearfix \">\n<div class=\"post-description editable-container tooltip-on-mouse\">\n<div id=\"postDescription_4124982554\" class=\"tCustomization tCustomization_post_description\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Roman Protasevich, the 26 year old journalist, and prominent opponent of Belarus\u2019 authoritarian president was arrested on Sunday after the flight he was travelling on from Athens to Lithuania was forced to land in Minsk following reports of a false bomb threat. The Ryanair passenger plane, headed to the country\u2019s capital Vilnius, was diverted just two minutes before it was due to cross into Lithuanian airspace.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0international community has condemned the move, with UK <a href=\"https:\/\/inews.co.uk\/news\/politics\/belarus-uk-sanctions-dominic-raab-ryanair-state-sponsored-plane-hijacking-1016165\">Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab<\/a>\u00a0saying he was \u201calarmed\u201d by Lukashenko\u2019s \u201coutlandish actions\u201d and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling the diversion \u201cshocking\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/politics-international-relations\/people\/517\/korosteleva-elena\">Professor Elena Korosteleva<\/a> says the &#8220;hijacking&#8221; incident is indicative of president Alexander Lukashenko&#8217;s crackdown on dissident voices.<\/p>\n<p>Protasevich worked for Poland-based online news service Nexta, which has broadcast footage of mass protests against Lukashenko through the Telegram messenger app. \u00a0Asked why Protasevich has been targeted Professor Korosteleva said protesters were \u201ccoordinating themselves and the Belarusian diaspora around the world\u201d by posting \u201cnews and warnings about special military forces or operations\u201d on digital platforms including Nexta.<\/p>\n<p>Asked about Putin&#8217;s possible encouragement on BBC Radio 5 Live Korosteleva replied:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think Lukashenka would have acted alone here, in the sense that his actions, diverting an International plane clearly would not be unsupported. Being emboldened by Putin&#8217;s support has encouraged him to commit this act of terrorism.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Read more of her analysis <a href=\"https:\/\/inews.co.uk\/news\/world\/roman-protasevich-belarus-plane-hijacking-ryanair-flight-president-lukashenko-goals-explained-1016025\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Listen to Professor Elena Korosteleva on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sounds\/play\/m000wcmh\">Radio 5 Live<\/a> (1:43:56).<\/p>\n<!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-3382-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/files\/2021\/05\/BBC-RADIO-5-LIve.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/files\/2021\/05\/BBC-RADIO-5-LIve.mp3\">http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/files\/2021\/05\/BBC-RADIO-5-LIve.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Roman Protasevich, the 26 year old journalist, and prominent opponent of Belarus\u2019 authoritarian president was arrested on Sunday after the flight he was travelling on &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/2021\/05\/25\/the-forced-landing-of-flight-fr4978\/\">Read&nbsp;more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66395,"featured_media":3383,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3382"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66395"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3382"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3393,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3382\/revisions\/3393"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}