Belarusian dissident journalist Roman Protasevich, who was arrested by Belarusian authorities following a flight diversion on Sunday, has been part of the Belarus political opposition for over a decade. Having been an opposition figure, he fled Belarus in 2019 and ended up in exile in Poland and Lithuania.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going. That’s why Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko ordered the flight in which Roman Protasevich and his girlfriend were travelling be diverted to Minsk and arrested him on the heels of more and more anti-government protests in Belarus. Protasevich knew he would be arrested by Belarusian authorities at a moment’s notice when the Ryanair flight was diverted back on May 23.
The 26-year-old dissident journalist became one of the opposition activists in Belarus when he was still an adolescent. He partook in anti-government rallies in 2010. And since 2011, he’s been a member of the opposition organisation “Young Front”.
Protasevich went into exile in 2019 when he sought political asylum in Poland. Protasevich was put on a list of people that the Belarusian government considers terrorists, which could bring the death penalty. He had even joked on his Twitter account, he was “the first journalist-terrorist in history.”
Protasevich ran the channel “Nexta” with another young journalist Stsiapan Putsila on the messaging app Telegram, which was used to organise massive protests against the iron-fisted rule of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko. He and Putsila rose to fame since then.
Putsila said Lukashenko’s regime has started doing unthinkable things that are against law and logic when he responded to the Belarusian government’s act of diverting the flight.
Protasevich’s parents said their son has not been treated in a fair way, as they suspected his nose was broken, and that he confessed to having organised anti-government protests in 2020 under duress.
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