The USA, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Austria combined to force down President Evo Morales’ jet in Vienna in 2013 after the CIA falsely reported whistleblower Edward Snowden was on board. The monumental cynicism of these nations in sanctioning Belarus for a directly comparable action is sickening, even by the standards of western hypocrisy. Indeed, to force down a Presidential jet covered by diplomatic immunity is a greater offence to international law than Belarus forcing down the Ryanair flight.
Both actions are wrong. You will excuse me also for pointing out that there is no sanction on Israel for targeting over 30 news organisations in Gaza and bombing them.
Perhaps I might go still further and mention that as I am about to go to jail for dissident blogging, I see the western powers as having limited moral authority to complain of Belarus jailing dissident bloggers? That is even without mentioning the long term persecution and entirely false accusation of my friend and the world’s greatest exposer of war crimes and government corruption, Julian Assange.
Apologies for the very short post. Am not too well and have been confined to bed since yesterday. I have an MRI scan in the morning, but hope and intend to bounce back very soon.
In the event I am put in jail at short notice, I wish to make plain that I am absolutely happy with my family and in fighting form, raring to get to the Supreme Court and there is no chance whatsoever that I will voluntarily commit suicide.
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@Kempe
for you
Video by Anatoliy Shariy. It’s in russian, no English subs, sorry
But it contains enough visual evidence to understand.
Shariy was challenged and that is the best way to make him do an excellent job 🙂 He found huge amount of evidence on Protasevich and Azov. That was not a journalist work as Protasevich claims now, that was shooting at people and Protasevich was proud of doing that. He also mentioned his some ancestors were Ukrainians, and others suffered under Kommunists, so it was his firm desire to join Azov.
Maidan – Protasevich was not learning and making reports ‘for about a week’ as he claims now. He spent about a month there and left after his head was injured in a fight with Berkut.
https://youtu.be/NjeFdndlOxA
Sorry Tatyana but
a) Not for Kempe
b) Too long for not Russian speaker
c) Protasevich with machine gun, worth seeing.
The people shot at and killed at the Maiden, a US coup, were killed by Lithuanian, Georgian, Ukrainian and a US snipers, they also killed the Berkut, Victoria Nuland handled the US end of it. The overall goal was to install an anti-Russian government and place US nukes on Ukrainian soil close to Russia. The EU knew about it but they were more concerned about their investors in the Ukraine than the coup. Nuland famously said when the EU found out about the US coup, f*ck the EU.
Here’s a timeline for those that missed it
Hope you’re ok RoS
Sad times for good people atm
https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/05/chronology-of-the-ukrainian-coup/
Thanks for the link Shatnersrug.
I’m fine thanks, I hope you are also in good health.
We had a guy (Hirst) using “Reap the whirlwind” accused of call to violence while this lot publish names and addressees of supporters of “Lukhaschenko” to be burned. Some of them were Riot Police other civilians.
How would we feel if our names and addresses were revealed and someone called for vengeance or I published names and addresses of people I consider my enemies? Or CM publish the addresses of Unionist on this blog and ask us to burn them.
Sorry you’re unwell… best wishes for a prompt return to good health!
Red Lines.
Putin told his people that it would be Russia that decides its own and actions would be swift and woe upon these who would burn bridges.
The NeoLib conmen are really raring to get going! Even before Merkel is retired – are they trying to force the German electors hand?
Popcorn!
Also what are EU trying to achive?
Obviously Belarus relations with the EU are dead now if EU is going to keep condemning and putting sanctions on Belarus, Belarus will strengthen ties with Russia because of this – is not that the opposite of what the EU is trying to achieve? How could they be so blind?
I sense Merkel being the only adult in the room when EU discuss these topics while hardliners from Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania bark the most and sure Belarus need development but this is certainly not the way to do it.
So, Lukashenko forged a letter from Hamas in order to catch Protasevich, and Protasevich pretended to be an innocent victim of political persecution, when in fact he is a terrorist …
Well, for me this is a *ha ha, classic* situation with a toad and a viper.
The reaction of Western media is no less classical, with pre-known heroes. Seems that it started long long ago, with Bin Laden, called the prince of the desert in white clothes?
*The saying about the toad and the viper has a colorful continuation, describing the situation in the best possible way 🙂 It’s a pity that that discussion was deleted! 🙂
You can be sure all the same people would say it was irrelevant if Julian Assange was a hardened Nazi.
If Assange were a Nazi, wanted by the state for his crimes, than people would know he is prisoned for his crimes, not for his political views.
By the way, in Belarus it’s illegal to join the war at either side. Be it in Azov, or in Donbass.
Here is a wiki article about Roman Protasevich, someone who had the courage to engage in acts of defiance against a dictatorship even when living as a teenager inside it!
The West is democratic. That means that criticising the government will not land one in jail. East of states friendly to NATO it is another matter.
“Criticising the Government.”
In context an interesting and revealing euphemism for exactly the same kind of activity Lord Haw Haw was involved in. It really is deeply insulting , as well as unpatriotoc, to the memory of all those in this Country and elsewhere who fought, suffered and died to defeat fascism in Europe for both ordinary citizens and our own Government to be lionising an established active member of a fascist regime/organisation with the same aims and creed as some kind of democratic freedom fighter.
There is no way if the situation were reversed that either our present Governments nor those making such flawed and wholly inaccurate comparisons, above, would accept such a line of reasoning and argument. The cases of Snowden, Manning, Assange, Murray, Horst, Llwellyn and others demonstrate what a crock of terminological inexactitudes is being spouted here.
Someone who had the courage to terrorise innocent people both in his own country and the Ukraine and to seek the violent overthrow of Belarus’s government and the installation of a neo-nazi regime which would sell off the country’s assets to his foreign backers.
M.J
One should add that also in democratic nations it is forbidden to collab with other nations trying to overturn the government.
I think that if Warsaw, Vilnius and Kiev had not covered up such criminals, but had extradited Protasevich at the request of the Belarusian authorities, then we would not have had to watch this disgusting farce with fake bombs of fake Hamas today.
Unfortunately, this is a long-standing tendency to ally with the most abhorrent ideologies to achieve political goals.
This was directly said by that boy with bright eyes and a luminous pseudonym in the Nexta interview with Yuri Dud – they are in an information war and therefore any methods are acceptable, and friendly countries help them.
Svetlov did not seem a bad guy. He knew what was right or wrong and because of it he was a bad liar.
Protasevich gave me different impression. Bad person
I have a very clear idea of Svetlov, because I have already met this type among ISIS recruiters.
This is a person who himself is not capable of killing, but inspires others. Such a schizophrenic thinking, he himself does not want to stain his hands with blood, but pushes his like-minded people to this.
He sees his role as leadership, education, inspiration – like a head of a sect.
He is completely passionate about his work, to the point of fanaticism, he sincerely believes that his goal is correct and justifies any methods.
Once, during the terrorist attacks in Russia, a telephone conversation was published. A girl called her curator and said that she was not sure of the need to detonate a bomb on her body. She told the curator that she just recently knew she was pregnant and this made her doubt.
The curator, in response, said with delight that the news about the pregnancy was great, because it would be a double shahada. Among the arguments for the explosion, several have been made, such as those quoted by Svetlov.
The girls in interview look like the type who falls under the influence of destructive sects. Sofia Sapega is most likely from the same herd.
She left her family at the age of 16 and moved to another country.
Her mother’s surname is the same as her step-father’s and is also the surname of many other people who are marked as a ‘friend’ on her social media page. But among them there is not a single one with the surname Sapega.
Protasevich, this one believes that for the sake of his cause you can and should lie, you can and should kill.
While Svetlov is an ideologist, Protasevich is a performer. Svetlov is a political instructor, and Protasevich is a commander.
Protasevich knows perfectly well which of his actions are criminal and therefore changes the subject of discussion.
This tactic is used by Roma people, when the anti-drug police raid their settlement. Their women run out into the street, pulling their hair and rolling on the ground in hysterics, shouting “help! men with guns! they are beating us! they are killing us!”
@Stuart – “Sam I know little about the incident but according to the maps published the plane was far closer to Lithuania when diverted than to Minsk. The maps shows them nearly at the border. The plane would have been descending.”
Except that it wasn’t, at least according to the Flightradar24 map that I have been sent. They compare the diverted flight with previous descents into Vilnius and FR4978 should have started its descent 177km south of the point where it made a u-turn; but had carried on at its cruise level.
See – https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/ryanair-flight-4978-to-vilnius-forcibly-diverted-to-minsk/?utm_campaign=website&utm_source=sendgrid.com&utm_medium=email
(I hope this link works, as I subscribe to Fr24; and it might be a subscriber only message).
The aircraft was 72km from Vilnius and only 30km from the Lithuanian border, and yet its flight path to Minsk meant it travelled another 300km to get there.
Update: According to Belarus there were two bomb threats sent.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/05/ryanair-bomb-threat-in-belarus-officials-received-two-email-warnings.html#more
I wonder where the first printscreen of one of the email threats actually came from? Who released it? Was that offcially released by the belarusian state or someone else?
The publishers of the news about the letter timing referred to the original source, which is a kind of Center in London, russian-speaking media sponsored by Khodorkovsky. The news covered only 1 letter.
In our ru-Internet it was also mentioned that a letter arrived first at the Vilnius airport, and only later the second came to the Minsk airport. The dispatcher also mentions in the transcript that the letter was sent to several airports.
Now I’m curious about which of the letters the provider is talking about? The wording, as always, is composed in such a way as to be true, but not to tell the ALL the truth – “The letter arrived at the Belarusian airport later …” But this does not exclude that it arrived at the Lithuanian airport earlier?
It’s also curious what Lukashenko and Putin talked about yesterday for more than five hours.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/05/how-protonmail-lost-the-public-trust-it-needs-to-do-business.html#more
Get in!
Bernard skewers the liars.
Swiss neutrality. My arse.