Roman Protasevich

Roman Dmitriyevich Protasevich or Raman Dzmitryevich Pratasevich (born 5 May 1995) is a Belarusian blogger and political activist.

He was the editor-in-chief of the Telegram channel Nexta and chief editor of the Telegram channel "Belarus of the Brain" (Беларусь головного мозга).

Protasevich and Sofia Sapega were arrested by Belarusian authorities after their flight, Ryanair Flight 4978, was diverted to Minsk on the orders of Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko on 23 May 2021, because of a false bomb threat passed on by Belarusian air traffic control.

On 3 May 2023, he was sentenced to eight years in prison.

However, on 22 May, it was announced that Protasevich had been pardoned.

Protasevich was born on 5 May 1995 in Minsk, Belarus.

Protasevich has been an opposition activist and participated in protests since the early 2010s, when he was detained several times.

Since 2011, he has been a member of the Young Front opposition organization.

He co-administered a major group in VKontakte, a social network, in opposition to President Alexander Lukashenko until 2012, when it was hacked by the authorities.

For a month he took part in the Euromaidan protests.

In 2017, he was accused of participating in an unauthorized event in Kurapaty, but he proved in court that he had an alibi for that day.

In an interview, he said he was a reporter for several major Belarusian media for several years.

He also worked for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Belarus channel from 2017 to 2018.

He had been a Václav Havel Fellow in Journalism in Prague, co-sponsored by the broadcaster.

Protasevich studied journalism at Belarusian State University until he was soon expelled in 2018.

He moved to Poland in 2019.

Protasevich's father Dmitry is a Belarusian army reserve officer and a lecturer at a Belarusian military academy.

He was stripped of his military rank and awards by a personal decree of President Alexander Lukashenko on 6 May 2021.

In March 2019, Protasevich was a photographer for Euroradio.fm at the meeting of prime ministers of Austria (Sebastian Kurz) and Belarus (Sergey Rumas) in Minsk.

In addition to taking photos, he made at least one video report for Euroradio about Chechen refugees trying to move to the EU through Belarus.

Protasevich's parents moved to join their son in Poland in August 2020.

Protasevich was in a relationship with Sofia Sapega, a Russian citizen, who was also detained by Belarusian authorities on 23 May 2021.

According to Sapega's mother, she and Protasevich had known each other for about six months prior to their arrests in May 2021.

Protasevich's relationship with Sapega eventually ended and Protasevich married another woman in May 2022.

In 2019, Protasevich moved to Poland and on 22 January 2020, announced that he had asked for political asylum there.

In 2020, Protasevich ran the Nexta Telegram channel together with its creator Stsiapan Putsila.

In August 2020, after Belarusian authorities tried to disable internet access during the 2020 presidential election, Nexta became one of the main sources of information about the protests against alleged rigged elections and started to coordinate the protests.

The channel had gotten nearly 800,000 new subscribers within a week.

In September 2020 Protasevich left Nexta.

On 5 November 2020, Protasevich and Putsila were accused of organizing mass riots (article 293 of the Belarusian criminal code), actions that grossly violate public order (article 342) and incitement of social enmity based on professional affiliation (article 130, part 3).

On 19 November, the Belarusian KGB put them on the "list of organizations and individuals involved in terrorist activities" for "mass unrest".

On 2 March 2021, Protasevich announced that he had begun working for the "Belarus of the Brain" Telegram channel formerly edited by a detained blogger, Ihar Losik.

On 23 May 2021, Ryanair Flight 4978 (Athens–Vilnius), with Protasevich on board, received a false bomb threat and was diverted by Belarusian air traffic control to Minsk National Airport.

While in Athens, Protasevich sent messages through Telegram saying he had seen a bald man at the airport following him and taking photographs of him.

Minsk airport staff said they landed the plane due to a report of a bomb aboard.

Lithuanian airport authorities stated that they had not been informed of a bomb threat.

The plane changed course just before it would have entered Lithuanian airspace.

According to a witness cited by Reuters, upon hearing of the diversion to Minsk, Protasevich immediately gave some of his luggage to his girlfriend.

In Minsk, Protasevich and his girlfriend were arrested at the passport control.

No bomb was found aboard.