U.S. and foreign press continue to refer to now 26-year-old jailed dissident Roman Protasevich as a “Belarusian journalist,” when he has no journalism training or credentials to become the best known anti-Alexander Lukashenko revolutionary in Belarus. Calling Protasevich as “journalist” hopes to give the young Trotskyite cover for his subversive activities, the exact same parallel in Russia with 44-year-old Russian revolutionary Alexi Navanly, now serving a two-year-eight-month sentence in a penal colony. Navalny called himself a journalist, too, hoping to get some cover for his subversive activities. Like Navalny, Protasevich ran a million-strong Internet organization designed to topple Lukashenko, promoting nationwide street protests last September. Western journalists want to promote Protasevich as a journalist when he runs a subversive organization.
Protasevich told a friend before his plane was forced down over Belarus airspace on Sunday, May 23 that he let his guard down risking flying over his country. Faced with charges of organizing mass riots, Protasevich faces up to 15 years in prison for his insurgent activities. Lukashenko didn’t hesitate to send his Air Force Russian-built Mig-29 flogger into Belarus airspace to intercept the Ryanair passenger en route from Athens, Greece to Vilnius, Lithuania. Stsiapan Putsila, a friend and founder of Warsaw, Poland-based Nexta news outlet, said Protasevich worked there for10 months last years. She was shocked by the events leading to Protasevich’s dramatic arrest. “ . .. It is a real shame that Roman made this mistake because we at some point discussed in a chat that it is not worth flying over Belarus because it’s a CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] country, without EU protections.
Putsila said Protasevich knew there were serious risks traveling over Belarus airspace largely because he was on Belarus’ Most Wanted list. “It’s dangerous and they can at any moment stop a plane and force it down,” said Putsila. “But unfortunately Roman’s colleagues say he had relaxed a bit in recent times, not feeling threats,” Putsila said, acutely aware of the dangers to her friend. Revolutionaries go at their own risk in any country, especially authoritarian regimes. In case anyone forgets, the Obama Justice Department pulled out all the stop to intercept 37-year-old National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden after he stole classified government electronic files and fled from Honolulu to Hong Kong May 20, 2013. Former President Barack Obama did everything to catch Snowden but he was one step ahead of the FBI and Justice Department, before he fled June 23, 2013 to Moscow.
Unlike Snowden who showed good survival instincts fleeing the long arm of U.S. justice, Protasevich, as Putsila said, let his guard down and got caught. No amount of U.S. or European Union lobbying can save him now. Like Navalny, he’ll wind up doing time in a Belarus prison for organizing street protests against the Lukashenko government. Western officials and the press see 66-year-old Lukashenko as a puppet of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Western officials and journalists have gone as far as saying Putin, not Lukashenko, ordered the Ryanair jet intercepted. Western press called Lukashenko’s acts a “hijacking,” something preposterous, since all passengers went on to their destinations after Protasevich was detained by Belarus authorities. Protasevich knows why he was arrested, spending years trying to foment a national revolt against the Lukashenko government.
Protasevich’s father, Dzmitry, said his son took a two-week vacation in Greece from the intense work as an anti-government activist. “It so happened that it was his first holiday in three years, he did not want to go but his friends simply forced him to go in order to rest,” Dzmitry told Reuters. While it’s true Protasevich worked at Warsaw-based Next, it’s also true he worked on subversive activities that carry a penality in Belarus of treason. U.S. press acts like Lukashenko’s force-down of the Ryanair jet was unprecedented. But had the U.S. got a jump on Snowden, Obama would have authorized the Air Force to force down his commercial flight from Honolulu to Hong Kong. CIA’s Hong Kong Bureaus Chief couldn’t track down Snowden, largely because he was protected by pro-Kremlin officials, arranging for his flight to asylum in Russia, part of a long Cold War history.
Lukashenko outsmarted Protasevich intercepting him over Belarus airspace Sunday, May 23. Engaging in subversive, treasonous activities has its consequences, regardless of how it’s glamorized in the U.S. and foreign press. When it came to former President Donald Trump, Democrats in the U.S. Congress and the media charged him with ‘incitement of insurrection” over the Jan. 6 Capitol riots. If the U.S. can charge a sitting president with “incitement of insurrection,” it’s a no-brainer to charge Protosevich for actually conspiring to overthrow the Belarus government. In Trump’s case, he did nothing other than deliver a harmless speech protected under the First Amendment. Protasevich and Navalny knew that actively organizing the overthrow of the Belarus and Russian governments had real consequences. Plucking Protasevich out of the air showed what happens to revolutionaries.
