NEXTA

May 23, 2021. A plane of Ryanair air-company was flying from Athens to Vilnius over Belarus, where it was turned due to false reports of explosion hazard, and forced to land in Minsk. After landing, Roman Protasevich, co-founder of the Belarusian opposition telegram channel NEXTA, who is wanted by the Belarusian authorities, was detained and dropped off the plane. Now he faces up to 15 years in prison. Together with him, his girlfriend, a citizen of Russia, Sofia Sapega, was detained, too. NEXTA telegram channel was covering the illegal presidential elections in Belarus in August 2020 and became one of the symbols of mass protests. / To me, intercepting a civil plane for the sake of kidnapping a journalist and his girlfriend is just an act of vile personal revenge and intimidation, that is terrorism. / Music by Suziksss & Interwayne / Art by Brickspacer, created in 2021