A key House Republican joined the chorus of media freedom advocates blaming Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko for engineering a bogus bomb threat and scrambling a fighter jet to arrest a key opposition activist-journalist on Sunday.
Mr. Lukashenko’s “violent repression of the pro-democracy opposition and independent media knows no bounds,” Rep. Michael McCaul, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement.
The Texas Republican issued the comment in response to reports that Belarusian activist and journalist Raman Pratasevich was arrested in Minsk after an airliner in which he was traveling was diverted to the Belarusian capital because of a bomb threat.
Belarus’ official presidential press service said Mr. Lukashenko personally ordered that a MiG-29 fighter jet accompany the Ryanair plane through the diverted landing in Minsk. The plane had been traveling from Greece to Lithuania.
At the airport in Minsk, Belarusian authorities arrested Mr. Pratasevich, who is well known in the region as a founder of a messaging app channel that has been a key information conduit for opponents of Mr. Lukashenko — an embattled leader often referred to as Europe’s “last dictator.”
The Associated Press reported that Mr. Pratasevich is a co-founder of the Telegram messaging app’s Nexta channel, which Belarus last year declared as extremist after it was used to help organize major protests against Mr. Lukashenko. Mr. Pratasevich, who had fled Belarus for Poland, faces charges that could carry a prison sentence of up to 15 years.
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The presidential press service said Sunday’s bomb threat was received while the plane carrying Mr. Pratasevish was over Belarusian territory. Officials later said no explosives were found onboard. There was no immediate comment from Ryanair, an Ireland-based airline.
In Washington, Mr. McCaul blamed Mr. Lukashenko, asserting the Belarusian president engineered the incident. “To force an Irish aircraft with nearly 200 innocent civilians to land in order to make that arrest is an egregious affront to democratic societies around the world,” the Texas Republican said.
“To arrest an activist for simply exposing the truth of the regime-sanctioned police brutality against anti-government protests in Belarus is abhorrent,” Mr. McCaul said.
“The Belarusian dictator and those who continue to support him cannot go unpunished,” he said. “The international community must respond decisively & speak with one voice in demanding the immediate release of Roman Protasevich.”
European Union governments had already demanded an immediate explanation from Belarus about the incident on Sunday. Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said the commercial flight was directed to land “by force,” while Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called the event a “reprehensible act of state terrorism,” according to a report by the U.S. government-backed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
Mr. Mateusz said on Twitter that he has asked the European Council’s president to discuss immediate sanctions against Belarus during a meeting scheduled for May 24, the news outlet reported, adding that a senior official at the German Foreign Ministry, Miguel Berger, also took to Twitter to demand Minsk provide an “immediate explanation” of the incident.
Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya called on the International Civil Aviation Organization to begin an investigation. “It is absolutely obvious that this is an operation by the special services to hijack an aircraft in order to detain activist and blogger Raman Pratasevich,” she said in a statement. “Not a single person who flies over Belarus can be sure of his safety.”
Months of protests arose after last August’s presidential election that official results say gave Mr. Lukashenko a sixth term in office. Police cracked down on the protests harshly, detaining some 30,000 people and beating many of them.
Although protests died down during the winter, Belarus has continued to take action against the opposition and independent news media. Last week, 11 staff members of the TUT.by news website were detained by police.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.
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