The regime of the Belarusian dictator Alexandr Lukashenko has seized one of its most important opponents: Roman Protassevich.

The former editor-in-chief of the Belarusian opposition medium Nexta, which now runs another medium distributed via the messenger service Telegram, was on board a plane that made an emergency landing on the way from Athens to Vilnius in the Belarusian capital Minsk.

Friedrich Schmidt

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

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    The occasion was a report about a bomb on board, which soon turned out to be false - but by then Lukashenko's people had already arrested Protassevich.

    The regime has classified Nexta, an organizer of the opposition during the protests against Lukashenko, from Poland, as extremist.

    Protassevich and his former colleague Stepan Putilo, the founder of Nexta, are even on the regime's terrorist list. 

    A MiG-29 accompanied the passenger aircraft

    Protassevich reported about the shading before departure in Athens. Minsk Airport announced later, after the emergency landing, that the pilots of the flight of the Irish low-cost airline Ryanair had asked for permission to do so themselves. A spokeswoman for the scheduled destination airport in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius said there was a conflict between a passenger and the crew. According to a Nexta report, agents from Lukashenko's KGB intelligence service told the crew during the flight that a bomb was on board. As a result, the pilots dutifully requested an emergency landing at the nearest airport. 

    Lukashenko's Telegram appearance boasted after the emergency landing: "Belarus protected Europe". Lukashenko had ordered the plane to "turn around and receive". The plane was no longer far from the border with Lithuania, but turned to Minsk. “So it came about that the dictator came in handy!” Lukashenko - who regularly flirted with his designation as a dictator - had a MiG-29 fighter plane soar that accompanied the passenger plane. 

    Opposition leader Svetlana Tichanovskaya, who herself was exiled in Lithuania, said that Lukashenko's regime had jeopardized the safety of passengers and civil aviation in order to take revenge on a person who had worked for the largest independent Belarusian telegram channels.

    Ryanair and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) were contacted to request an investigation;

    possibly Belarus must be excluded from the ICAO. 

    Protassevich could even face the death penalty

    In the past few days, Lukashenko's regime in Belarus itself launched a new offensive against all critics.

    Several employees of the largest independent medium, Tut.by, are in custody, the website of the news portal is blocked.

    Tax allegations are made against journalists and other employees of the medium.

    What Protassewitsch threatens is still unclear, but at least long imprisonment: So far, he and Putilo - who lives and works in Poland - have been accused of “organizing mass unrest” and “stirring up enmity”.

    Should he also be charged and convicted of terror, he could even face the death penalty, which Belarus is the only country in Europe to continue to impose and enforce. 

    Therefore, the anger of many Belarusians discharged on Sunday in online comments on the airline Ryanair. Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, on the other hand, tweeted that the event was unprecedented. "The Belarusian regime is behind these repulsive acts." Protassevich must be released immediately. The Federal Government in Berlin demanded an immediate statement from the Belarusian regime after a State Secretary announced.