Replies to post #351588 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[DrContango]

THEY ALL KNEW!!!

Doc

[DrContango]

MR. BLINKY

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/let-their-words-do-the-talking/201405/just-the-bat-eye

Skillful, articulate interrogation of Dejoy by Senator Rosen of Nevada:

Doc

[fuagf]

Outcry over crackdown in the Gambia as president refuses to quit

"Belarus protests: Minsk still in revolt after week of fear, pride and hope
" To Keep Putin Out, Belarus Invites the U.S. and China In"
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Belarus"

and the Gambia.

This article is more than 6 months old

Amnesty attacks heavy-handed response to protests as Adama Barrow clings to power


Adama Barrow has reneged on a campaign promise to step down this month, saying the constitution requires him to serve out a full five-year term. Photograph: Valery Sharifulin/TASS

Jason Burke Africa correspondent
Tue 28 Jan 2020 08.27 EST

Last modified on Tue 28 Jan 2020 15.45 EST

Human rights groups have criticised authorities in the Gambia .. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/01/gambia-mass-arrests-risk-fuelling-tensions/ .. after police arrested 137 people, injured dozens and detained prominent journalists amid protests calling for the president to honour a pledge to step down after three years in office.

Adama Barrow came to power after the election in 2016, ending 22 years of brutal dictatorship by Yahya Jammeh and inspiring widespread hopes for reform.

But the 54-year-old, a former businessman who once worked as a security guard in the UK, has reneged on a campaign promise to step down by this month, saying the constitution requires him to serve out a full five-year term.

In response, a movement called Three Years Jotna, which means “enough” in the local Wolof language, began protesting last month to demand his departure.

On Sunday, police intervened when protesters deviated from the planned route on the outskirts of the capital Banjul in order to march toward the city centre, the government said.

In a statement late on Sunday, government spokesman Ebrima Sankareh said the protesters had “became riotous and violent by obstructing roads and burning tyres and logs on the highway as well as setting up fires in nearby bushes and on government wetland”.

Images of the protests showed police firing teargas at protesters before charging them with batons. Witnesses said they heard chants inciting an uprising.

Eighteen police officers and seven civilians were injured in the clashes and some of the 137 arrested were executive members of Three Years Jotna,Sankareh said.

The government has also decided to ban Three Years Jotna, Sankareh said, calling it “a subversive, violent and illegal movement”, and suspended two radio stations it accused of inciting violence during demonstrations.

Opposition leaders could not be reached for comment.

Amnesty International said the crackdown on protesters had alarming echoes of the Gambia’s brutal past and would fuel tensions.

“There have been some significant improvements in the country’s human rights record since President Adama Barrow came to power, but the use of excessive force by security forces to disperse protesters risks fuelling tensions and steering the Gambia back to dark days of repression,” the campaign group said.

Sunday’s march follows earlier protests by hundreds of Gambians calling for justice over human rights violations and abuses, including forced disappearances, rape, and murder, which occurred during Jammeh’s 22-year rule.

There have also been previous demonstrations by Jammeh’s supporters in favour of the former dictator’s return from exile in Equatorial Guinea. Jammeh fled in January 2017 under military pressure from West African countries to respect his election loss to Barrow.

The government has said Jammeh will be arrested .. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51179251 .. for killings, torture and other abuses allegedly committed by his security forces if he returns to the Gambia. Jammeh denies those allegations.

Ismaila Ceesay, a senior lecturer in political science at the University of the Gambia wrote on Twitter ..

#Gambia:The disproportionate use of force by police against protesters, the shutting down of media houses & the arrest of journalists marks the dawn of a retreat from our democratic progress. We strongly condemn these acts & urge the GoG ensure the rule of law always prevails.

— Dr. Ismaila Ceesay (@ISMAILACEESAY) January 27, 2020

.. that the “disproportionate use of force by police against protesters, the shutting down of media houses & the arrest of journalists marks the dawn of a retreat from our democratic progress”.

Senior officials have previously said the agreement to stand down after three years of the five-year term was a result of Barrow being misled.

“He was misguided and misled into this [agreeing to serve for only three years]. There is no transitional president, he’s not a transitional president. He’s an elected president and executive president,” Barrow’s close adviser Seedy Njie told the Guardian last year .. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/sep/23/gambia-joy-gives-way-to-sinking-distrust-adama-barrow-clings-to-power . “When they made this agreement, there were a lot of politicians around him who were misguiding him. When he assumed office … he looked at the laws and he realised that he was elected to serve a period of five years.”

After winning plaudits at the beginning of his tenure for committing to respect rights and establish a truth commission to investigate abuses under Jammeh, Barrow is facing multiple challenges.

Critics say that not enough has been done to purge those involved in human rights abuses under the former dictator from the military, police and intelligence service, nor to reduce the size of the security establishment.

In July, dozens of protesters calling for better services in the city of Brikama were tear-gassed and hospitalised. The rapper Killa Ace, arrested with 36 others .. https://allafrica.com/stories/201909130140.html .. in August after protests against alleged police brutality, was held for weeks before being released on bail.

Barrow also faces a weak economy, hobbled by massive debts incurred by Jammeh’s government and soaring unemployment.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/28/outcry-over-crackdown-in-the-gambia-as-president-adama-barrow-refuses-to-quit

[fuagf]

'No going back': Poland and Lithuania urge UK to act against Belarus

"Belarus protests: Minsk still in revolt after week of fear, pride and hope
"To Keep Putin Out, Belarus Invites the U.S. and China In""

Call for sanctions and an inquiry comes amid fears of possible Russian action

Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor

Sat 12 Sep 2020 01.47 AEST
Last modified on Sat 12 Sep 2020 03.22 AEST


Lithuania’s foreign minister, Linas Linkevicius: ‘In Belarus they are European citizens, and who can speak for them if not us?’
Photograph: AFP/Getty

Poland and Lithuania .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/lithuania .. have urged the UK to take a lead in the political crisis in Belarus by urgently imposing sanctions against officials responsible for last month’s fraudulent presidential elections and demanding an international inquiry into the state’s repression.

The UK outside the EU has set up its own sanctions regime, including Magnitsky sanctions for human rights abuse, and has said it will impose at least the same sanctions as the EU, but the EU’s sanctions have been blocked.

The US said on Friday it would be announcing its sanctions list in a few days, even if the EU was not ready.

Linas Linkevicius, the foreign minister of Lithuania, one of the countries sheltering the exiled opposition, met the UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, on Thursday to press the case for UK sanctions, and greater support for Belarus .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/belarus .. civil society. So far the UK has provided an extra £1.5m to help support media and human rights organisations.

“In Belarus, citizens of Europe .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/europe-news .. are showing such courage,” Linkevicius told the Guardian. “They have been expelled from their jobs, from schools, they have been intimidated, tortured and raped, and still they want, unarmed, to own their future. They are not burning cars. They are holding flowers.”

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the unofficial leader of the opposition, fled to Lithuania, and on Wednesday was feted by the Polish government when she visited Warsaw.

The Polish deputy foreign minister, Marcin Przydacz, told the Guardian his country was coordinating daily with London and intended to discuss a proposed big package of European economic cooperation to help Belarus.

He said: “It would be to Belarus society to decide if they want to be closer to east or west, but we should show what being a friend of Europe offers. The Belarus people of the previous 30 years is over. There is no going back. They are different and changed people. They are not afraid, despite the torture and persecution. Whoever takes over the country will have to recognise that this is a new society.”

He predicted many European governments would not recognise the current president, Alexander Lukashenko .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/alexander-lukashenko , after his term of office expires on 5 November.

How a rush for Mediterranean gas threatens to push Greece and Turkey into war
Read more > https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/11/mediterranean-gas-greece-turkey-dispute-nato

Lithuania has, along with the two other Baltic states, Estonia and Latvia, already imposed travel bans on some Belarus officials, but plans for EU sanctions have been paralysed by Cyprus blocking action against the Russian-backed Belarus leadership unless the EU also agrees to impose sanctions on Turkey over Ankara’s assertion of gas drilling rights in the Mediterranean.

Cyprus, which has long acted as an EU visa point and tax haven for Russian oligarchs, has been accused of blackmail by some European leaders. Przydacz said it was inevitable that countries to the south had different priorities to the east, but urged Cyprus to keep the two issues separate.

Linkevicius said the Belarus crisis was a test case for European values, and should not be reduced to bargaining over regional interests.

“We have to have a value-based approach, and not be hostage to our national interests. This is not just about Belarus but about us, and whether we are able to react properly and on time. We are already one month after those so-called elections so we now need to send a clear message,” he said.

VIDEO - 5:32 Can Belarus protesters topple Europe's last dictator? – video explainer

“In Belarus they are European citizens, and who can speak for them if not us? If we react too late or too little, the protesters will feel deserted, and our expressions of concern will have no impact. Everywhere dictators are trying to impose a new normal by consolidating their power against liberal democratic society.
Guardian Today: the headlines, the analysis, the debate - sent direct to you
Read more

“The outgoing leadership in Belarus has to understand its mandate has expired politically, morally and soon legally, and that they have no right to speak on behalf of their own people.”

With Vladimir Putin due to meet the Belarus president on Monday, Linkevicus said he feared Russia .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/russia .. could seek to annex or even invade Belarus. He said Putin had always banked on fatigue, divisions in the west, and an illusion of promised constitutional reform.

He stressed the demonstrators in Belarus were not anti-Russian but warned if Putin backed the repression, it might have a long-lasting and damaging impact on sympathy for Russia across Belarus, adding: “It is up to Putin to decide.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/11/no-going-back-poland-and-lithuania-urge-uk-to-act-against-belarus

[fuagf]

"Belarus Forces Down Plane to Seize Dissident; Europe Sees ‘State Hijacking’"

"Belarus protests: Minsk still in revolt after week of fear, pride and hope
" To Keep Putin Out, Belarus Invites the U.S. and China In"
[...]
Profile
Who is Alexander Lukashenko?
Born in August 1954 in Kopys, Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko has served as president of Belarus since the establishment of the office in July 1994. On his initial election, Lukashenko set about establishing an effective dictatorship, sustained by shamelessly rigged elections.
P - Over the years, Lukashenko has offered his people a sort of Soviet-lite system that prizes tractor production and grain harvests over innovation and political freedoms, and the key part of his political offer has always been political and economic stability.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=157805225 "

Belarus Forces Down Plane to Seize Dissident; Europe Sees ‘State Hijacking’

The dissident, Roman Protasevich, co-founded a Telegram channel that is a popular opposition outlet in Belarus. The plane was flying from Athens to Lithuania when it was forced down.


A Belarusian dog handler checking luggage from a Ryanair flight at Minsk International Airport on Sunday. Onliner.by/Agence France-
Presse — Getty Images

By Anton Troianovski and Ivan Nechepurenko
May 23, 2021Updated 7:08 p.m. ET

MOSCOW — The strongman president of Belarus sent a fighter jet to intercept a European airliner traveling through the country’s airspace on Sunday and ordered the plane to land in the capital, Minsk, where a prominent opposition journalist aboard was then seized, provoking international outrage.

The stunning gambit by Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, a brutal and erratic leader who has clung to power despite huge protests against his government last year, was condemned by European officials, who compared it to hijacking. It underscored that with the support of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Mr. Lukashenko is prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to repress dissent.

The Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius, Lithuania, carrying some 170 passengers — among them the journalist, Roman Protasevich — was flying over Belarus when Belarusian air traffic controllers notified its pilots of “a potential security threat on board” and directed the plane to divert to Minsk, the Ireland-based airline said in a statement.

MAP
Source: Flightradar24 By Scott Reinhard

Insert: Yep. Screenshot again beat me. It'd gotta be easy, still am still missing a pedal.

Mr. Lukashenko, often referred to as “Europe’s last dictator,” personally ordered a MiG-29 fighter jet to escort the Ryanair plane to the Minsk airport after a bomb threat, his press service said. According to the statement, Mr. Lukashenko gave an “unequivocal order” to “make the plane do a U-turn and land.”

After about seven hours on the ground, the Ryanair Boeing 737-800 took off for Vilnius from Minsk with its passengers and crew, and landed safely at its final destination 35 minutes later.

But not Mr. Protasevich.

During the plane’s stop in Minsk, he was arrested, the country’s interior ministry said in a statement that was later deleted from its official Telegram channel.

After the plane was diverted to Minsk, Mr. Protasevich, 26, turned to fellow passengers “and said he was facing the death penalty,” one passenger, Monika Simkiene, told Agence France-Presse in Vilnius.

“He was not screaming, but it was clear that he was very much afraid,” another passenger, Edvinas Dimsa, recalled, according to A.F.P. “It looked like if the window had been open, he would have jumped out of it.”

No bomb was found on board, the country’s law enforcement authorities said. The Investigative Committee, Belarus’s top investigative agency, said it had opened a criminal case into a false bomb threat.

“Nothing untoward was found,” said the statement by Ryanair, a popular, low-cost airline.

The International Civil Aviation Organization, an agency of the United Nations, said it was “strongly concerned .. https://twitter.com/icao/status/1396515815248257027 ” about the incident. The agency said that the “apparent forced landing” of the flight may have violated the Chicago Convention, the 1944 accord that established the core principles of international aviation.

The government of Lithuania issued its own statement, saying, “It is an unprecedented attack against the international community: A civilian plane and its passengers have been hijacked by military force.”

Mr. Protasevich is a co-founder and a former editor of the NEXTA .. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/04/world/europe/belarus-blogger-poland-svetlov.html .. Telegram channel, one of the most popular opposition outlets in Belarus. Most independent media organizations in the country were forced to shut down after large-scale protests erupted over a disputed presidential election in 2020. The social network Telegram was left as one of the only means of uncensored communication.


Roman Protasevich being detained by police officers in Minsk, Belarus, in 2017. Sergei Grits/Associated Press

Over the past few years, Mr. Protasevich has been living in Lithuania in exile, fearing imprisonment in Belarus, his home country, where he is accused of inciting hatred and mass disorder and faces more than 12 years in prison if convicted. In November, the country’s main security service, still called the K.G.B., put him on a list of terrorists.

On Sunday, Mr. Protasevich was flying back from Greece after attending an economic conference there with the Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya .. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/23/opinion/belarus-tikhanovskaya-opposition-leader.html , Greek officials said.

At the Athens airport, Mr. Protasevich had noticed a bald man following him and taking photographs, according to messages he sent that were published by a Telegram channel he edits. After his arrest, colleagues said they had immediately revoked Mr. Protasevich’s access to the Telegram channel to make sure that data about its 256,000 subscribers could not fall into the hands of Belarusian law enforcement officials.

Many of Mr. Lukashenko’s political opponents have sought safe haven in exile in Lithuania and Poland, but Sunday’s events showed that his government can reach them even in the air.

Both Lithuania and Greece are members of the European Union; Belarus is not. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, the E.U.’s executive body, called the plane’s diversion “utterly unacceptable.”

The Greek Foreign Ministry called it a “state hijacking.” Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland called it an “act of state terrorism.” Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, said that “such an act cannot remain without clear consequences.” His French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian, called for a “firm and unified response” by the E.U.

The American secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, said: “We strongly condemn the Lukashenka regime’s brazen and shocking act to divert a commercial flight and arrest a journalist. We demand an international investigation and are coordinating with our partners on next steps.”

But even as European officials threatened consequences for Belarus, it was not immediately clear what those might be. The bloc already imposed .. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2020/11/06/belarus-alexandr-lukashenko-and-14-other-officials-sanctioned-over-ongoing-repression/ .. sanctions last year against leading Minsk officials — including Mr. Lukashenko himself — for “violent repression and intimidation of peaceful demonstrators, opposition members and journalists.”

On Sunday, Lithuania’s president, Gitanas Nauseda, describing Belarus’s actions as “abhorrent,” called for its airspace to be declared unsafe .. https://twitter.com/GitanasNauseda/status/1396548329048268800 .. and for Belarusian aircraft not to be accepted at E.U. airports.

In Russia — where the state media described last year’s uprising against Mr. Lukashenko as a Western plot — the arrest met with approval among Mr. Putin’s supporters. Margarita Simonyan, editor of the pro-Kremlin RT television network, wrote on Twitter .. https://twitter.com/M_Simonyan/status/1396461624337354753 .. that Mr. Lukashenko “played it beautifully.” And Vyacheslav Lysakov, a member of Parliament allied with Mr. Putin, described .. https://ria.ru/20210523/zaderzhanie-1733558011.html .. Mr. Protasevich’s arrest as a “brilliant special operation.”

The Belarusian authorities said .. https://t.me/pul_1/2873 .. they had ordered the plane to land after receiving information about a bomb threat, though Vilnius, the plane’s destination, was much closer than Minsk when the jetliner turned around, flight-tracking data showed. The country’s Defense Ministry said in another statement that the country’s air defense forces were put on high alert.

Mr. Lukashenko and his government are known to use ruses to pursue their political opponents.

Mr. Protasevich’s arrest comes months after the biggest wave of street protests in the history of Belarus failed to depose Mr. Lukashenko, who has been the country’s authoritarian leader for more than 26 years.

More than 32,000 protesters were arrested and at least four died during the protests. Hundreds were brutally beaten by the police. NEXTA emerged as the leading online outlet coordinating the demonstrations.

Backed by Mr. Putin and using extraordinary violence .. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/13/world/europe/beatings-detentions-belarus-lukashenko.html , Mr. Lukashenko managed to successfully crack down on protesters, with the country’s security apparatus remaining loyal to him.

Ms. Tikhanovskaya, Mr. Lukashenko’s main opponent .. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/13/world/europe/belarus-opposition-svetlana-tikhanovskaya.html .. during the last presidential election in August, which was widely regarded as rigged, called the episode with the Ryanair flight “an operation by the special services to hijack an aircraft in order to detain activist and blogger Roman Protasevich.”

[Neat fact-filled two statements. No bs by Ms. Tikhanovskaya in those.]

“Not a single person who flies over Belarus can be sure of his safety,” she said.

Airline industry observers predicted a strong response from commercial airlines. “The thing that is unprecedented about this incident is that it was state sponsored,” said Kevin Murphy, an analyst at Morgan Stanley.

The reminder that even people hurtling through the air in passenger jets miles above ground can be affected by the tumultuous geopolitics of Eastern Europe evoked the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down by Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine in 2014. The apparently accidental attack killed all 298 passengers and crew, and prompted airlines to avoid flying over eastern Ukraine.

[Apparently an accident? Some background, on Tornado Alley, around here ..
F6 Thursday, 07/24/14 05:13:14 AM
Maddow exposes hollowness of reporting on MH17 downed over Ukraine ..
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/replies.aspx?msg=104607969 .. on that.]

On Sunday, after the Ryanair flight finally made it to its destination, the airline issued a statement.

“We apologize sincerely to all affected passengers for this regrettable delay, which was outside Ryanair’s control,” it said.

Matina Stevis-Gridneff contributed reporting from Brussels, Niki Kitsantonis from Athens and Kate Kelly from New York.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/23/world/europe/ryanair-belarus.html