Yesterday Ryanair Flight FR4978 took off from Athens, Greece, at 9:29 a.m. local time toward its destination in Vilnius, Lithuania. But as flight FR4978 was about to exit Belarus airspace, the flight suddenly made a sharp right turn and headed to Minsk, escorted by a MiG-29 fighter sent from the Belarus military,reportsBloomberg.
When FR4978 touched down in Minsk, two of its passengers, journalist Roman Protasevich and his girlfriend, Sofia Sapega, were promptly escorted off the plane and arrested by Belarusian police. Protasevich is a Belarusian journalist in exile who has been highly critical of the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko (Alyaksandr Lukashenka in Belarusian). Protasevich runs the popular Nexta Telegram channel, which played a key role in organizing protests against Lukashenko last year.
根据Ryanair的一份声明，在Protasevich和Sapega从FR4978航班陪同下，它被允许再次起飞并继续到达原始目的地。
Our FR4978 flight has landed safely in Vilnius at 19:25hrs UK time (21:25hrs local time). Here is Ryanair’s statement on today’s diversion to Minsk Airport ????pic.twitter.com/i0xhdpwTAF
— Ryanair Press Office (@RyanairPress)May 23, 2021
However, once the implications of what happened became clear, Ryanair released another statement:
Our updated statement regarding yesterday's (23 May) diversion of FR4978.pic.twitter.com/banhrdvxmq
— Ryanair Press Office (@RyanairPress)May 24, 2021
FR4978从西方领导人转移的反应迅速，有些人称该法案为白俄罗斯“国家恐怖主义”。
The outrageous and illegal behaviour of the regime in Belarus will have consequences.
Those responsible for the#Ryanairhijacking must be sanctioned.
Journalist Roman Protasevich must be released immediately.
EUCO will discuss tomorrow action to take.
- Ursula von der Leyen（@vonderleyen）May 23, 2021
我们强烈谴责Lukashenka政权的粗鲁和令人震惊的举动转移商业飞行并逮捕记者。我们要求进行国际调查，并正在与我们的合作伙伴进行下一步协调。美国与白俄罗斯人民站在一起。
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken)May 23, 2021
Closely monitoring forcible landing in#Belarusof flight to Vilnius & reported detention of opposition figure Roman Protasevich. This is a serious & dangerous incident which requires international investigation. Belarus must ensure safe return of crew & all passengers.
— Jens Stoltenberg (@jensstoltenberg)May 23, 2021
Proud to stand with my European counterparts in unequivocally condemning the Lukashenka regime’s reckless use of a fighter aircraft to intercept a civilian Ryanair flight and arrest journalist Raman Pratasevich.
Read our full statement:https://t.co/94JpGGUBPrhttps://t.co/drFpLl3v5y
- 参议院外交关系委员会（@sfrcdems）May 23, 2021
卢卡申卡（Lukashenka）和他的政权今天再次表现出对国际社会及其公民的蔑视。伪造炸弹威胁并派遣MIG-29强迫@RyanAir到明斯克以逮捕@nexta以政治动机指控的记者是危险和令人讨厌的。
- 朱莉·费舍尔（@usambbelarus）May 23, 2021
我们要求Lukashenka政权释放拉曼·普拉塔塞维奇（Raman Pratasevich）和所有在白俄罗斯（Berarus）拘留的人。今天的令人震惊的举动濒临灭绝，并成为商业航空安全的冒犯。https://t.co/TMogvmTorh
— Ned Price (@StateDeptSpox)May 23, 2021
However, some of the social media reaction has been a bit different. While social media posts have in general strongly condemned the diversion of Flight FR4978 and the arrests of Protasevich and Sapega, some reporters and human rights activists are saying the outrage from the European Unions and the United States over the diversion of Flight FR4978 is hypocritical.
If the reports are accurate, Lukashenko’s government forcing this plane to land in an effort to arrest a dissident is a terrible crime. Interesting to contrast this with the Obama admin. forcing Evo Morales’s plane to land in 2013 in an effort to arrest a US dissident,@snowden.
— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill)May 23, 2021
当一个国家像白俄罗斯的空气盗版一样，为什么西方假装愤怒会感到愤怒？白俄罗斯并没有忘记美国何时强迫国家元首埃沃·莫拉莱斯（Evo Morales）降落，以逮捕爱德华·斯诺登（Edward Snowden）并逃脱了它。
— Ajamu Baraka (@ajamubaraka)May 24, 2021
As of the time of this writing, the status of Protasevich and Sapega remains unknown.