DISINFO: The landing of Ryanair flight in Berlin show that the West applies double standards
SUMMARY
The Western politicians are not objective when it comes to the situation in Belarus, and this is followed by unjust sanctions.
A specific example: when Ryanair flight landed in Minsk, what noise followed! And when the plane of the very same company landed in Berlin, the Western media treated this information as mundane. These are double standards and it is obvious.
RESPONSE
Disinformation about the forced diversion and landing of Ryanair flight 4978 in Minsk on 23 May 2021.
The disinformation claim aims to make a false equivalence between an unscheduled landing of Ryanair flight from Dublin-Krakow in Berlin, on May 30, 2021 and a forced diversion of Ryanair flight Athens-Vilnius to Minsk on May 23, 2021.
On May 30, a passenger plane flying from Ireland to Poland had to make an emergency landing in Berlin, due to a possible security threat on-board, following a tip-off by phone. A Berlin police spokeswoman said that officers had completed their security checks but they had not detected any danger. Eventually, passengers were able to travel on in a replacement plane.
A week before, on the 23rd of May, 2021 the Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania was forced to turn back minutes before crossing the Lithuanian border and land in the Belarusian capital. The pretext for landing in Minsk was a false report about a bomb on board. At the moment when the plane changed course, it was closer to Vilnius airport than to Minsk. The plane was forced to land in the Belarusian capital by a Belarusian military aircraft. To land in the Belarusian capital was not the Ryanair pilots' decision. Independet journalistic investigation showed, that the email about the alleged bomb threat was sent to Minsk airport 24 minutes after the conversation between the Minsk Air Traffic Control dispatcher and the pilot.
Belarusian opposition journalist and a critic of illegitimate Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, Raman Pratasevich was detained during a repeated security check of passengers.
The EU condemned Belarusian action against civil plane and the detention of Pratasevich. In a declaration on behalf of the EU on the forced diversion of Ryanair flight FR4978 to Minsk on 23 May 2021, the High Representative called for the immediate release of Roman Pratasevich. This was followed by a European Council statement, in which the EU leaders called for targeted individual and economic sanctions as well as to ban overflight of EU airspace by Belarusian airlines and prevent access to EU airports of flights operated by these.