Belarus force-lands Athens-Vilnius flight

Kyriakos Mitsotakis's post about the incident in Belarus: "The forced landing of a passenger plane in order to detain a journalist is an unprecedented shock. We demand all passengers' immediate release. Tomorrow's European Council must respond to the need to step up pressure on Belarus. Enough is enough".

Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko has ordered a Ryanair flight aboard a major opposition blogger bound for Lithuania to land in Minsk, and arrested him on arrival, human rights and political activists said.

Members of the law enforcement forces arrested activist Roman Proposemic, whose name was on a list of warrants after mass demonstrations last year after elections that Lukashenko claimed to have won by a great difference. The plane, which was flying over Belarus on a flight from Athens to Vilnius, had almost arrived in Lithuania when it changed direction and was escorted by a fighter to Minsk amid reports of explosives on the aircraft, according to the Flight Tracking website. No explosives were found, BelTA reported.