DISINFO: The practice of forced landing of planes took place before
SUMMARY
The practice of forced landings of planes took place before, the most high-profile case was the coercion to land the plane of Bolivian President Evo Morales in Vienna in 2013. The reason for this was rumours that a former CIA agent Edward Snowden, accused by the US of divulging state secrets, was on board with the President.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the forced landing of Ryanair flight 4978.
The cited example of the aircraft landing with Evo Morales did not involve bomb scares or crackdowns on the political opposition. In July 2013, under the Obama administration, Bolivian President Evo Morales was forced to land in Austria, amid U.S. pressure, in a hunt for U.S. fugitive Edward Snowden, who was thought to be aboard. But unlike the Belarusian plot, European nations refused the plane permission to enter their airspace, Bolivian officials later told reporters, leaving them with no clear route back home after a trip to Moscow. The plane subsequently landed in Austria.
According to The Washington Post, some analysts see the arrest of the journalist Pratasevich as part of a more recent trend — what Freedom House, a nongovernmental, nonpartisan advocacy organisation, has dubbed “transnational repression.”
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 Mr 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.
See similar cases here.