Belarus’ regime was increasingly isolated yesterday, as Europe cut air links and calls grew for more action over its diversion of an airliner and arrest of a dissident on board.
After weathering a wave of protests and Western sanctions last year, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko was facing extraordinary new pressure over Sunday’s rerouting of the Ryanair flight to Minsk and arrest of opposition journalist Roman Protasevich.
More Western leaders joined calls demanding Protasevich’s release, after the EU agreed at a summit on Monday to ban Belarusian airlines from the bloc and called on EU-based carriers not to fly over its airspace.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Air France, Finnair and Singapore Airlines became the latest carriers to suspend flights over Belarus, following Scandinavian airline SAS, Germany’s Lufthansa and Latvia-based regional airline airBaltic.
Opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya said the global community needed to go further, urging the US to take action in a call with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.
Speaking to reporters in Vilnius, where she lives in exile after a disputed election in August last year, Tikhanovskaya called for “comprehensive” international measures to force the regime to give up power.
“This is the time to act,” she said.
“Suspension of flights over Belarus doesn’t solve the real problem. The problem is the terrorist regime that rigged elections last year,” she said.
She asked for the Belarusian opposition to be invited to next month’s G7 summit in Britain, an initiative that sources close to French President Emmanuel Macron said Paris supported.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson joined calls for Protasevich to be released, saying: “Belarus’ actions will have consequences.”
The UN Human Rights Office also demanded the immediate release of Protasevich and his Russian girlfriend, Sofia Sapega, who was also arrested after the Athens-to-Vilnius flight landed in Minsk.
EU leaders on Monday said that they would adopt further “targeted economic sanctions” against the Belarusian authorities to add to the 88 regime figures and seven companies on a blacklist.
Lukashenko and his allies are already under a series of Western sanctions over a brutal crackdown on opposition protests that followed his disputed re-election to a sixth term last year.
Protasevich, 26, was a cofounder of the Nexta Telegram channel, which helped organize the protests that were the biggest challenge to Lukashenko’s long rule.
He had been living between Poland and Lithuania.
Belarusian state television late on Monday broadcast a 30-second video of Protasevich confirming that he was in prison in Minsk and “confessing” to charges of organizing mass unrest.
The footage showed Protasevich — who could face 15 years in jail — with dark markings visible on his forehead, saying he was being treated “according to the law.”
US President Joe Biden said the video appeared to have been made “under duress.”
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