Belarus’ ‘air piracy’ should not be condoned - Punch Newspapers

STRIPPED of cant, the diversion of a commercial aircraft and subsequent arrest of two passengers: a journalist and his Russian girlfriend, by Belarus, was a flagrant act of lawlessness. In what the United States government called “an affront to international norms,” the dictatorial regime of President Alexander Lukashenko forced a Ryanair flight from Athens, Greece, to Vilnius, Lithuania to divert to Minsk, the Belarusian capital.

The outrage that has greeted this act of state terrorism is matched by the defiance and false narratives of the event pushed by the Lukashenko government and its main foreign ally, Russia. He should be made to pay a high price for this assault on global travel and international law. Both countries are already under sanctions imposed by the US and European Union countries for domestic violations of rights and foreign activities deemed offensive by the international community.

Many European airlines immediately cancelled flights to Belarus and avoided its airspace. The US issued a ‘Level 4’ warning to its citizens to avoid travelling to Belarus, urged airlines to exercise “extreme caution” when travelling through Belarusian airspace and suspended the 2019 Bilateral Air Services Agreement with the former Soviet republic.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation has launched a fact-finding investigation to establish whether Belarus breached international law as alleged by the EU and the US, including the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation. It is not only freedom that Lukashenko threatens, his action also hampers the international tourism industry, which has already been buffeted by the COVID-19 pandemic and struggling to recover.

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