Czech Republic suspends Belavia operations over Ryanair incident

The Czech Republic is suspending the operating permit of Belarus’s national carrier, Belavia, until further notice, Deputy Prime Minister Karel Havlíček announced after a meeting of the National Security Council on Wednesday. The move comes in response to a widely condemned incident on Sunday in which Belarus diverted a Ryanair plane and forced it to land in order to arrest an opposition journalist on board.

Speaking at an EU summit which approved broad sanctions against Belarus over the incident, Prime Minister Andrej Babiš said it was important that such acts of state terrorism should not go unanswered. The incident has been strongly condemned by politicians across the board in the Czech Republic and the Czech authorities have called for a thorough international investigation into the matter.