In the headlines: a hijacking and a lot of reactions
A Ryanair Boeing 737 that took off from Athens for Vilnius in Lithuania and was forced to land in Minsk.
Among the passengers, Roman Protassevich, a Belarusian blogger, wanted since last year's protests against Lukashenko's deemed fraudulent re-election in August 2020 © AP / Onliner.By
By: Sébastien Duhamel
6 mins
Publicity
A hijacked plane usually makes the headlines, so when the plane in question has been hijacked by a state (Belarus), obviously, there's a lot of talk. Starting with the Lithuanian media, of course, the final destination of the hijacked device. There, no doubt
for the
Lietuvos Rytas
: "
According to experts, the forced landing of the Ryanair plane flying from Athens to Vilnius is a deliberate strategy of deception, to stop Roman Protassevich
"
,
the opposition activist Belarusian and former editor-in-chief of the Nexta site.
Lietuvos Rytas
publishes
Minsk's line of defense
all the same
, but to better dismantle it, let's say it. The Lithuanian newspaper reports information from
the Telegram Pul Pervogo channel
, close to Alexander Lukashenko's press service. According to this channel, we read, as the regulations provide, it is the nearest airport that must be offered to the crew in the event of a bomb threat. Yesterday, the captain of the aircraft would then have decided to go to Minsk and the situation would simply have been presented to Alexander Lukashenko, who would have replied "of
course, we will help
", before personally dispatching a fighter plane. But the problem, underlines
Lietuvos Rytas
, “
A little earlier, it was written on this same Pul Pervogo channel that Vilnius airport was closer, but the plane still decided to land in Minsk.
"
It is obvious there is really gray areas, writes
the independent Belarusian media Tut.by
.
You may know that his site was closed by the authorities in Minsk, never mind, we can follow their work on Telegram and fortunately.
Another Belarusian opposition media, there is a little left,
Nacha Niva
does not lace.
He also does a world press review and headlines bluntly: "
Belarusian military plane forced Ryanair to land in Minsk to arrest journalist."
"
Words leave little room for doubt in the Anglo-Saxon press as well.
The
New York Times,
for example, mentions a "
staggering maneuver by Alexander Lukashenko
,
a brutal and erratic leader."
"He who is sometimes called" the
last dictator in Europe
", he who"
clung to power despite huge demonstrations against his government last year
, "recalls the
New York Times.
Reaction from Lithuania's neighbors
"
Latvia and Western countries condemn the seizure of the plane by Belarus
".
This is what the
Neatkariga Rita Avize
site
,
an independent Latvian site, displays.
It relays "
the declaration of the chairmen of the foreign affairs committees of the parliaments of the United States, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania and Ireland
".
Statement that “
the hijacking was qualified as an illegal act of piracy against a civilian aircraft
”.
A statement stressing that this happened "
under the threat of violence as the aircraft traveled from one capital of the European Union and NATO to another capital,
" writes the
Neatkariga
.
On the
Diena
site
, we also read the words of Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs, according to which the European Union should "
consider stopping crossing Belarusian airspace
", as the Latvian company Air has already announced. Baltic precisely.
The Lithuanian president is also speaking, his words can be read
on the site The Baltic Times
.
Gitanas Nauseda assures us that “
very serious sanctions will be discussed at EU level if Minsk does not release Belarusian opposition activist and blogger Roman Protassevich
”.
Many uncertainties for the 171 travelers
The
Neatkariga Rita Avize
publishes in particular
the testimony of a traveler who was on the plane
: “
When we landed, we noticed a lot of fire trucks, an ambulance service and we thought that there was perhaps be technical problems with the aircraft. But when we were released in groups of five or six and saw our things surrounded by dogs and scanned, then we realized that there was probably another story here
”.
And what is striking in the rest of this testimony delivered by the
Neatkariga Rita Avize
is the uncertainty for hours.
Passengers did “
receive text messages from Ryanair apologizing for their landing in Minsk and the inconvenience caused, as well as sending the scheduled boarding time, but this has been postponed several times
.
Even "
when we got on the plane, we went back and forth on the runways for about an hour before we could take off
."
We understand it: beyond the diplomatic outcry, travelers clearly had a bad day.
A drama in Italy
We see the front page of the
Guardian
in Great Britain, the front page of the
Jerusalem Post
in Israel as well ... We learn that “
five Israelis lost their lives in the fall of a cable car on the shores of Lake Maggiore
”. 14 people died in total. The
Guardian
describes the horror of a fall from 20 meters, as does the Italian press obviously. She headlines about this 20-meter flight and “
Death in the Cable Car
”.
Same image of the crashed cabin on the front page of
Il Messaggero
or La
Stampa
.
On its site,
the
Corriere della Sera
publishes a
striking
video
to understand.
"
The start, the two sections of the course, the torn rope [...] near the finish at 1,400 meters above sea level, just below the top of the mountain
", we read.
And then the fall.
We discover here all the sad details of a "
tragedy that still has no explanation,
"
Corrierre
tells us
.
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