While the dramatic arrest of dissident journalist Roman Protasevich by the Belarusian government over the weekend was fiercely condemned worldwide, press freedom advocates on Monday not only called for the reporter’s release but also highlighted how the actions taken by Belarus were eerily similar to an effort in 2013 by the U.S. and other Western governments to capture NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Protasevich, a well-known critic of Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, was taken into custody after the plane that he and 122 other passengers were traveling on—en route from Athens, Greece to Vilnius, Lithuania, where Protasevich lives in exile—was forced to land.
Although they readily admitted that Lukashenko’s government had violated international treaties governing airspace and was deserving of condemnation, critics of the corporate media and U.S. foreign policy were eager to point out that Belarus’ behavior was not unprecedented; in fact, they said, some of the same Western
— source commondreams.org | Kenny Stancil | May 24, 2021