EU Leaders Call For Sanctions Against Belarus Over Ryanair 'Hijacking' To Detain Journalist May 23, 2021 23:04 GMT width No media source currently available 0:00 0:01:48 0:00 Share share Print A chorus of EU leaders called for swift sanctions after Belarus’s authoritarian ruler forced a Ryanair plane to land in Minsk and detained a prominent opposition journalist, in what was widely condemned as a state-sponsored hijacking of a commercial flight. Ahead of a preplanned EU leaders’ summit on May 24, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen urged a toughening of the bloc’s existing sanctions against Belarus imposed over the crackdown by the regime of Alyaksandr Lukashenka.