Who is Roman Protasevich, Belarus opposition blogger?

BELARUS has been condemned for forcing a Ryanair plane carrying about 170 people from 12 countries to land in Minsk.

The plane was diverted just two minutes before it was due to cross into Lithuanian airspace, so that armed guards could arrest a journalist, Roman Protasevich.

Who is Roman Protasevich?

Roman Protasevich, 26, is a dissident journalist who also blogs about Belarus.

He has annoyed 'Europe's last dictator', Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, for daring to speak out against him.

Protasevich fled Belarus for Poland in 2019 due to pressure from the authorities, says Media Solidarity, a group that supports Belarusian journalists.

He moved his parents to Poland too after they were put under surveillance, he wrote on Twitter.

He later relocated to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, where opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is also based.

Until his sudden arrest on May 23, 2021, while aboard a Ryanair plane, Protasevich was editor-in-chief of a Belarusian political outlet hosted on the Telegram messaging app.

Called "Belarus of the Brain", it has around a quarter of a million subscribers.

But before then, he was an editor at the Poland-based Nexta Live channel.

This is based on the Telegram messenger app and has over one million subscribers.

The channel is openly hostile to Lukashenko – whose opponents have previously been kidnapped and murdered.

It played an important role in broadcasting huge protests against the thin-skinned leader in 2020, at a time when it was hard for foreign media to do so.

Those protests were sparked by huge anger over what the opposition said was a rigged presidential election, something Lukashenko denied.

The channel's shocking footage showed police brutally cracking down on demonstrators after the disputed August 9, 2020 election.

When hundreds of thousands of people took to the street to oppose his oppressive regime, the state responded with extreme violence.

Belarusian security forces arbitrarily detained thousands of people and systematically subjected hundreds to torture and other ill- treatment, Human Rights Watch said.

The victims described beatings, prolonged stress positions, electric shocks, and in at least one case, rape, and said they saw other detainees suffer the same or worse abuse.

They suffered serious injuries, including broken bones, cracked teeth, skin wounds, electrical burns, and mild traumatic brain injuries. Some had kidney damage, HWR added.

What has he said about Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko?

Roman Protasevich believes that he will be killed for daring to publicly oppose Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko.

When he realised that the Boeing 737 was being diverted en route to his new home in Lithuania, "he started panicking and saying this was because of him," Monika Simkiene, a 40-year-old Lithuanian, told AFP.

She added: "He just turned to people and said he was facing the death penalty."

Euro Radio reported that in early 2010, Protasevich was a youth activist.

But he was detained on several occasions, including during the 2011 "silent protests".

He was also expelled from the Faculty of Journalism of the Belarusian State University.

In November 2020, Protasevich published on Twitter a copy of an official Belarusian list of terrorists, which included his name.

The listing said he was accused of organising mass riots while working at Nexta.

He also stands accused of disrupting social order and of inciting social hatred.

Protasevich regards the allegations, which could see him jailed for years, as unjustified political repression.

Why did Roman Protasevich request political asylum in Poland?

Protasevich sought asylum in Poland in January 2020 after getting pressure from security services.

He said at the time that he couldn't be "ignored by law enforcement agencies" as he was "actively speaking in social networks".

Protasevich believed his mobile phone was tapped while in Belarus, and that he was being followed.

"I understood that most likely now they are just waiting for something, and then I also have every chance of being jailed," the journalist said.

What happened on Ryanair flight 4978 on May 23, 2021?

Ryanair Flight 4978 had already begun its descent into the Lithuanian capital on May 23, 2021, when the pilot suddenly announced that the plane would be diverting to Minsk, capital of neighbouring Belarus.

There was no explanation.

But one of the passengers aboard the Boeing 737 reacted immediately.

Belarusian dissident journalist Roman Protasevich knew he did not have much time.

Minsk is less than 200km (125 miles) from the plane's destination of Vilnius. and the diversion would take just minutes.

He stood up from his seat, reached into the overhead locker, pulling a laptop computer from his hand luggage and passed it to a female companion along with his mobile phone.

A passenger later described this hand-over as unfortunate, as she was also removed from the flight.

Outside the plane was a Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jet, on orders from Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to force the plane to Minsk.

Protasevich looked "super scared", a passenger later said.

"I looked directly into his eyes and he was very sad," she added.

Belarusian authorities had deliberately diverted the flight as it passed over the country because of a suspected bomb alert, state news agency BelTA said. That alert later turned out to be false.

As Protasevich was spoken to by Belarusian security officials, he took off his mask, confirmed who he was and said: "I'm the reason why all this is going on."

Protasevich was immediately separated on arrival in Minsk and checks of luggage using sniffer dogs turned up nothing.

A Lithuanian passenger said: "We saw from the window that Roman [was] standing alone, and one policeman with [a] dog was trying to find something (in his luggage)."

The European Union called for Protasevich's immediate release, with the head of the EU's executive European Commission and the Polish prime minister describing the incident as a hijacking.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda told a news conference late on Sunday that Protasevich's female companion had also not re-embarked the flight from Minsk to Vilnius.

Amnesty International spokeswoman Marie Struthers said: "This apparent act of air piracy is chilling."

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