Letter to President of Belarus

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Friday May 28, 2021 13:02 by Justin Morahan

Illegal arrest, after plane hijacking, of Roman Protasevich and Sofia Sapega

The letter below was sent yesterday to President Alexandr Lukashenko via his Council of Ministers and his Prime Minister's Press secretary.

To: Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus
11 Sovetskaya St., Minsk 220010

Cc: Press Secretary of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Belarus

27 May 2021

Dear Ministers

I write as a human rights activist solely concerned with the hijacking of an Irish plane, property of Ryanair, for the purpose of arresting a journalist who is a critic of your president Alexandr Lukashenko.

This letter is for the President but is sent through you as I could find no email address for the President on his official website and Belarus has no Ambassador in Ireland.

In his recent address to you on 25 May last the President stated “As we have expected, our ill-wishers from the outside and from within have changed their methods of attacking the state. They have crossed many red lines, have crossed the boundaries of common sense and human morals".

First let me assure you that I am not an "ill-wisher" attacking the state of Belarus. My protest is on behalf of the journalist, Roman Protasevich, who was snatched off the plane with a female companion Sofia Sapega, in Minsk, Belarus. The plane had been diverted, maliciously and intentionally it would appear, on foot of a bogus "bomb scare" from its proper destination, Vilnius in Lithuania, to Minsk. This facilitated the arrest of the couple who are now in illegal detention in your country where they have been filmed making "confessions".

No-one is in any doubt about what has happened. It is a human rights outrage.

Whether such outrages occur in the East or in the West, in a so-called capitalist country or in a so-called communist country. makes no difference whatsoever. Your President is the one in this instance who has crossed the boundaries of common sense and human morals.

I call on him to release Roman Protasevich and Sofia Sapega immediately.

With best personal wishes

Justin Morahan

Human rights activist and pacifist

Dublin

Ireland