An international backlash, especially within the European Union, continued on Monday, a day after Belarus authorities ordered a plane flying over its territory to land in Minsk in order to arrest an opposition journalist.
Using the pretense of a bomb scare, police circled the plane after it landed and hauled off Roman Protasevich, while putting on a “performance” of having sniffer dogs check luggage placed on the tarmac and screening other passengers’ documents.
The Ryanair passenger jet was headed from Athens to Vilnius, Lithuania, and was diverted – with a Belarus MIG 29 flying next to it – just before it had reached Lithuanian airspace.
The Greek PM himself strenuously condemned the action, which he called “air piracy”.
