Belarus Diversion Of Ryanair Flight Sparks Memories Of 2013 Pursuit Of Edward Snowden

Sunday’s diversion and forced landing of a Ryanair Holdings plc RYAAY flight by the Belarus government and its subsequent arrest of a dissident journalist on the flight has brought strong condemnation from the U.S. and European governments. However, many denizens on Twitter TWTR recalled how the U.S. and the European nations took similar action eight years ago while in pursuit of the elusive Edward Snowden.

'Aviation Piracy': Ryanair’s Flight FR4978 was bound from for Greece to Lithuania when Belarus’ aviation authorities demanded its immediate descent by claiming there was a report of a bomb on the flight.

A Belarus fighter jet forced the flight to land in Minsk, the nation’s capital, and after the airplane landed Belarusian police arrested Roman Protasevich and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega, who is a Russian citizen and a student at Lithuania’s European Humanities University.

Protasevich was a former editor of the Telegram channels Nexta and Nexta Live who went into exile in Lithuania in 2019. He has been accused by Belarus authorities of fomenting mass protests last year against President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled the country since 1994.

As of the time of writing, no public charges have been brought against Prostasevich and Lukashenko. Ryanair, which is an Irish carrier, issued a statement accusing Belarus of “aviation piracy,” while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called the incident "outrageous" and "illegal" and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a condemnation over a “shocking act” that “endangered the lives of more than 120 passengers, including U.S. citizens.”

Lest We Forget: News of the arrest of Prostasevich has ignited a #Snowden trend on Twitter, as many social media users recall when the U.S. and E.U. pulled a stunt similar to what transpired over the weekend. 

On July 2, 2013, Bolivian President Evo Morales left a Moscow conference for a flight home, but his presidential aircraft was denied passage over French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian airspace and was forced to land in Vienna.

Austrian officials searched the airplane to determine if it was carrying Edward Snowden, the former computer intelligence consultant who classified National Security Agency data regarding domestic and global surveillance programs. Snowden was stranded in Moscow's airport, and Morales' flight departed after Austria's president met with Morales.

Then-State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki — now the White House press secretary — later acknowledged the U.S. was "in contact with a range of countries across the world who had any chance of having Mr. Snowden land or even transit through their countries."

Among the prominent Twitter users recalling the Morales incident was Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of The Intercept, the online publication the broke the Snowden story. Scahill tweeted, “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.”

Ajuma Baraka, political activist and 2016 Green Party candidate for vice president, tweeted, “The U.S. is shocked that Belarus would force a plane to land in order to arrest someone. And NATO calls for a criminal investigation! But NATO had a different position when NATO & U.S. was hunting down Edward Snowden. What hypocrites.”

Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, responded to online comments that his nation was involved in the Ryanair diversion by tweeting, “Oh, those bloody Russians! No evil in the world is happening without them! And I can’t help reminding that when Western countries hijacked plane with Bolivian president #Morales in 2013 looking for #Snowden there was no intl outcry #KeepCalmAndBlameRussia #Belarus”

But not everyone on Twitter drew parallels between the two incidents. Rep. Adam Kizinger (R-IL), was asked abut the Morales and Ryanair flight diversions and responded, “Ya. Three things: 1) Edward Snowden 2) private aircraft 3) this actually never happened. Denial of airspace is common. Intercepting civilian airliners in violation of ICAO is not. Is this like another conspiracy out there now?”

(Photo courtesy Michael Oldfield/Wikimedia Commons.)