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Belarus accused of diverting the flight to arrest the activist.
• 5 min read
Belarus’ ongoing protests: Examined
Why protesters have not been able to push President Alexander Lukashenko from power.AFP via Getty Images
Belarus is accused of forcing a Ryanair passenger plane to land in the country so that authorities could arrest a leading blogger who helped organize last year's protests against the country's authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko.
The Ryanair flight was passing through Belarus' airspace while traveling from Athens to Lithuania's capital Vilnius, when it was forced to divert to Minsk for an emergency landing because of a false bomb threat. On the ground, security agents arrested Roman Protasevich, founder of the social media news channel, NEXTA, which played a crucial role in the protests last summer.