Who is Roman Protasevich, for whose arrest Belarus intercepted the plane - ForumDaily
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Who is Roman Protasevich, for whose arrest Belarus intercepted the plane

On May 23, a Ryanair plane made an emergency landing in Minsk. Among its passengers was Roman Protasevich, the former editor-in-chief of the Nexta telegram channel, one of the symbols of last year’s protests, writes Air force.

On May 5, Roman Protasevich turned 26 years old. His Twitter profile reads: “History’s first terrorist journalist.” And, with some stretch, this is true. Protasevich is also the first citizen in the history of Belarus included in the official list of persons who may be involved in terrorist activities.

Protasevich is not just from a military family, his father was responsible for the ideological education of personnel. He was a senior lecturer at the department of ideological work at the Military Academy of Belarus. But something went wrong with the ideological upbringing of his son.

Roman Protasevich has participated in protests against Alexander Lukashenko since the early 2010s - he was still a schoolboy. For the first action, he was expelled from the lyceum at the National Technical University, and he returned to a regular school. He entered the Faculty of Journalism of the Belarusian State University, but was expelled from there too.

From YouTube to Nexta success

Protasevich started working as a freelancer for several independent media outlets. In parallel, he wrote news for the Telegram channel, which he and another recent schoolboy Stepan Putilo created. The Telegram channel was called Nexta, and at first it was a by-product, the main one was the channel of the same name on YouTube, and the teenagers planned to upload their music there.

The first success of the channel - Nexta was the first to publish the news that a traffic police inspector was found shot dead in the Mogilev region. Then the audience increased from about 40 thousand people to 90 thousand.

In the spring of 2020, as the protest moods in Belarus grew, the channel began to enjoy more and more popularity. And in August, after the presidential elections, the number of Nexta readers in a few days increased from 300 thousand to 1,8 million people.

When the Telegram channel began to be quoted by all the major media in the world, they called it “Nexta”, but this was the wrong option. “Nekhta” translated from the Belarusian language is simply “Someone”.

In terms of popularity, Nexta was second only to TUT.by, the country's main independent media outlet, which was read by 62% of the Belarusian population. On May 18, 2021, the authorities blocked the TUT.by website and detained 15 employees and managers of the publication.

The “Nexta-live” channel quickly published photos, videos and news from the places where the most serious clashes between protesters and the police and military took place. Its correspondents were the citizens themselves. In an interview with the BBC in August 2020, Roman Protasevich said that the editorial office (four people worked there) received hundreds of messages per hour through feedback channels. The editorial office in those days worked 20 hours a day.

Nexta cannot be called the most accurate and objective mass media in Belarus. The editors often published unverified information (for example, that Russian special forces entered Belarus; the reaction to this news was huge, but it turned out to be untrue). The channel did not hide its sympathy for the protesters and its dislike for Lukashenka and the security forces.

The creator of Nexta, Stepan Putilo, in an interview with Yuri Dudu himself said that he is engaged in counter-propaganda - in response to the propaganda of the authorities. But precisely this approach turned out to be close to the participants of the actions themselves.

On the subject: Global scandal: Belarus intercepts an international flight and arrested a passenger

"Five or six" criminal cases

By the time the protests began, not a single person from Nexta's editorial office was living in Belarus. Stepan Putilo left after school to study at a Polish university. Roman Protasevich left for Poland at the end of 2019, and in January 2020 asked for political asylum in Warsaw on the grounds that he was being persecuted by the security forces.

Protasevich slightly anticipated the events: in 2018, they actually tried to open a criminal case against him under the article of insulting the president - one of the videos on YouTube Nexta was called “Lukasherlock”, but the check did not find any insult in this word.

Protasevich really began to be persecuted after the start of mass protests. He himself said in an interview with the BBC that “five or six” criminal cases had been opened against him, and he no longer remembers exactly under which articles.

It is officially known that Protasevich was accused under three articles of the Criminal Code of Belarus in November 2020. This is organizing mass riots, gross violation of public order and inciting social discord. The first of them is the most serious, for it you can get up to 15 years in prison.

In addition, the KGB of Belarus included Protasevich and Putilo in the list of persons who may be involved in terrorist activities. The death penalty is imposed for terrorism in Belarus, but this accusation has not been officially brought against the journalist.

The journalists were accused of being on an interstate wanted list; Belarus demanded that Poland extradite them, but the Polish side did not even respond to this demand. Fearing kidnapping, Protasevich often changed his place of residence and observed other precautions - he tried not to walk the streets alone, and did not leave the house in the dark.

The Belarusian authorities do not know how to block Telegram channels, so in the same fall of 2020, the court recognized Nexta as an extremist site. Even its symbolism – the white letter N on a black background – is considered extremist. This means that any citizen of the country who reposts a Nexta message may be subject to administrative and criminal prosecution.

In August 2020, Protasevich's parents moved to live with him. On May 4, 2020, Alexander Lukashenko signed a decree depriving the military ranks of those security officials who supported the protests. Among them was Dmitry Protasevich, a reserve lieutenant colonel, a long-term participant in the parades on May 9, who was awarded a medal for 29 years of impeccable service.

On the subject: Aircraft interception by Belarus: pilot talks published, Europe stops flights over the country

Vilnius-Athens-Minsk

At the end of last year, Roman Protasevich moved to Vilnius. On his Twitter, he showed a gift that unnamed colleagues gave him. It was an alcoholic drink with the caption: “To a terrorist from the younger generation of extremists.”

From Vilnius, he and his girlfriend, a student of the European Humanities University and a citizen of Russia, Sofia Sapega, flew to Athens. On May 16, Protasevich photographed Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who met with the Greek authorities.

On May 23, a Ryanair plane with Protasevich and Sapieha flew from Athens to Vilnius.

As of the middle of the day on May 24, it is not known exactly why the plane landed in Minsk. The Belarusian authorities said the plane could have been mined (this turned out to be untrue; the authorities opened a criminal case for false reporting of the terrorist attack), and Lukashenka personally ordered the fighter to be lifted to escort the plane to the airport.

It is known from the words of other passengers that the commander of the ship announced: the plane is landing in Minsk, he promised to tell the reasons later. After that, Protasevich approached the flight attendant and said: I am not allowed to this country, I am a refugee from there, they can kill me. The flight attendant, according to the passengers, replied that he could not help, the airline is obliged to abide by the rules.

Protasevich handed over his phone and laptop to Sapieha. Both of them were detained in Minsk. Officially, the detention was announced by the main department for combating organized crime and corruption of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus. It actively participated in the suppression of the protests.

On May 24, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russian diplomats in Minsk would contact the Belarusian side regarding Sofia Sapieha. European politicians most often used the phrase “state terrorism” in assessing what happened.

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The latest messages in Nexta that European airlines have begun flying around the territory of Belarus, and that politicians are preparing sanctions.

On May 25, Protasevich appeared on the video, in which he stated that he was cooperating with the investigation. Human rights activists and relatives suggest that the video was recorded under pressure.

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