EU Agrees New Belarus Sanctions After Plane Arrest

 

The European Union has cut Europe's air links with Belarus over the arrest of the opposition activist Ramon Protasiewicz, who was seized when his Ryanair plane was forced to land in Minsk.

 US President Joe Biden has accused Belarus of a shameful assault on dissent and freedom of the press. 

Mr. Protasiewicz has appeared on a video apparently confessing to organizing mass protests against President Lukashenko. He says he's being treated well and is cooperating with investigators. But his forehead looked bruised and his colleagues say he has been beaten.

Ramon was later seen in a video released by the Belarus authorities. Romanes Farhad looks bruised. His father is concerned at what he calls a terrorist act.

The EU is furious its leaders are demanding Roman protasiewicz be freed immediately and democracy returned. They've agreed a ban on Belarusian flights from all EU airspace and airports. And further penalties on officials and assets in Belarus, there will be additional sanctions on individuals that are involved in the hijacking, but this time also on businesses and economic entities that are financing this regime since disputed elections last August. 

This man, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, has cracked down on dissent. He's had hundreds of activists detained, many others fled the country into exile.

Belarusians already under sanctions because of the clampdown on those demonstrations last year. I've been speaking to Nick Baker, correspondent in Brussels, and I asked him how effective those sanctions already in place had been.

The sanctioning of those 88 individuals and some other entities. So far, they've been subject to an EU travel ban, also freezes on their assets that they may have within the European Union bloc. So although late last night at that press conference earlier on the line was saying that the EU has acted very quickly and unanimously in agreeing this package of measures.

The EU leaders wanted to send a message related to aviation, and so they blocked but a Russian aircraft from coming into US base there, urging all EU carriers to basically to follow suit and not go into Russian airspace.