Belarus’s dictator will go to any lengths (even hijacking a plane) to stamp out dissent

Roman Protasevich does not look like much of a threat to Europe’s last dictator. A fresh-faced 26-year-old, he has never been elected to public office nor has he stood as a candidate.

What this blogger and co-recipient of the European parliament’s Sakharov prize for freedom of thought has done, however, is regarded as just as dangerous by Alexander Lukashenko’s regime. He has helped to ensure that the world knows about the pro-democracy movement in Belarus.

The Belarusian journalist and activist was on his way back home to Lithuania when his Ryanair flight was diverted from its route on the pretext of a security alert and “escorted” to Minsk airport by military aircraft. It was clear that Protasevich was the target of this operation when police arrested him along with his Russian girlfriend, Sofia Sapega, a law student, before allowing the flight to resume.

Nexta, the channel on the social media platform Telegram that Protasevich co-founded and formerly edited, has become one of the main tools in the Belarusian resistance movement that developed since last summer’s disputed presidential elections in which Alexander Lukashenko claimed victory.

Pro-democracy campaigners use the channel to inform supporters of the details of protests as well as to publicise reports and images of brutal attacks on protesters by…

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