Updated: 26 May 2021, 6:53
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THE mum of Belarus journalist Roman Protasevich has said she is begging the whole world to save him after he was abducted from a Ryanair flight over the weekend.
Natalia Protasevich, whose 26-year-old son was arrested in Minsk on Sunday, said authorities are going to kill him unless world leaders help get him released.
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Natalia Protasevich said authorities are going to kill her son unless world leaders help get him releasedCredit: AFP
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Natalia and Dmitry Protasevich said they saw clear signs that their son had been beaten in the first footage seen of him since he was detainedCredit: AFP
Updated: May 24 2021, 21:33 ET
JOE Biden slammed the arrest of Belorussian journalist Raman Pratasevich as outrageous after a confession video was made under duress.
The president also called the removal and arrest of the journalist a direct affront to international norms, in a statement released on Monday.
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Biden said the video of Pratasevich appears to have been made under duressCredit: Reuters The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms both the diversion of the plane and the subsequent removal and arrest of Mr. Pratasevich, the statement says. This outrageous incident and the video Mr. Pratasevich appears to have made under duress are shameful assaults on both political dissent and the freedom of the press.
Skyjacking could bring down pariah state
The extraordinary forced landing of a commercial flight with a Belarusian dissident aboard escalated into one of the biggest flare-ups in East-West tensions in recent years.
Antonâ âTroianovskiâ
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The tray tables were being raised and the seat backs returned to their upright positions as passengers on Ryanair Flight 4978 prepared for the scheduled landing in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius. Then the plane made an abrupt U-turn.
For many passengers, it initially seemed like one of those unexpected delays in airline travel. But after the pilot announced the plane had been diverted to Minsk, the capital of Belarus, one passenger â Roman Protasevich, a prominent Belarusian opposition journalist who had been living in exile since 2019 â grew terrified, certain that he faced arrest.
Lithuanian leaders say Protasevich’s confession may be forced
LRT.lt2021.05.25 09:44
Roman Protasevich / Video screengrab
Lithuania’s president and foreign minister have spoken out about the video allegedly showing Roman Protasevich, the Belarusian journalist who was detained after the regime hijacked a Vilnius-bound Ryanair flight, may have been obtained using torture.
Aistė Skaisgirytė, the chief foreign policy adviser to President Gitanas Nausėda, said the confession was clearly forced.
“Knowing how such confessions are obtained from people, we don’t buy it as a real statement,” she told Žinių Radijas radio on Tuesday. “But the person is alive and that’s the good news.”