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Comment by kobiguru | Hacker News Reader

no It's not

exhibit A:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/bolivian-presidents-pla...

First, your evidence of another incident of a government strong arming a plane to land and capture someone is not evidence that either are not an abuse of power.

But even if we take as such, there are some major differences.

1. This was a journalist, not a government employee who stole classified information.

2. They claimed a bomb threat, and used a fighter jet to escort the plane down. There was no order to make this official, and as such was a hijacking.

3. The dictator president of Belarus has been arresting journalist and anyone else who may challenge him. Including anyone who runs against him in elections. Can't vote for people in jail/dead.

I agree that what Belarus did was wrong on many levels.

Just a reminder. Assange was journalist as well.

Not exactly the same case but a debate could be had that the moral high ground was given away allowing for this to be seen as more acceptable.

> This was a journalist, not a government employee who stole classified information.

We don't know. Some repeat that, others say that he was an activist involved in the recent failed coup.

As much as I agree with the equivalence, the answer really is that Snowden's abduction would also have been a shameful state-sponsored hijacking.

Not really, that plane was forced to land by not allowing it enter certain airspace. Very different from having fighter jets intercept and force a plane to land.

Shameful? Maybe. Hijacking? No.

A slight diplomatic difference in tactics to achieve the same effect. I'm sure they would've ratcheted up the tactics and eventually sent fighter jets if closing the airspace failed to achieve what they wanted.

You are speculating. Austria isn't a NATO member and no US fighter jets can go there without their permission.

The plane could have come back to Russia. They had a choice.

> A slight diplomatic difference in tactics to achieve the same effect

A massive difference in tactics, these two are incomparable. Just like denying someone entry at the border is not the same as arresting them and collecting rent from someone isn’t the same as robbing them.

Encouraging a plane to land by not allowing them into your airspace is not the same as calling in a fake bomb threat and forcing that plane down with fighter jets.

This case is the dictionary definition of hijacking. An act of unlawfully seizing an aircraft, vehicle, or ship while in transit.

Yeah, this case is. The Morales case wasn’t.

I was immediately reminded of this incident as well. But just because it happened before does not make it right now.

And Morales was not arrested so there is a difference. We don‘t know if Snowden would have been arrested or if in that case the plan would have landed. Assuming it wouldn‘t, would anyone really shoot it down, killing a foreign president? I cannot imagine, the repercussions would be enormous.

edit: Additionally it seems nobody forced the plane to land in Vienna. Instead what happened was that France revoked the permission to fly over France. That‘s all. The pilot chose where to land and had various options and chose Vienna. Then nothing happened after the landing.

It‘s not even close.

Yeah surely they just wanted to say hi.

I don't understand what you are trying to convey? Are you saying that state-sponsored hijacking can only happen once, so the fact that is has happens before is evidence it cannot have happened now?

That's not an exhibit of how this isn't state sponsored hijacking. That's a poor attempt at whataboutism, that has surfaced several times in ALL the threads on this topic.

There are several reasons that wasn't even remotely comparable, and the most obvious one is that that was diplomacy (the US closing airspaces and thereby giving the plane no choice but to land).

That kind of power is wielded by the US becuase it's a powerful global power AND because it has good diplimatic relations with the countries in question (France, Spain etc).

The pilot in the linked incident had to request to land (And could have returned to the starting airport but chose the closest, perhaps hoping to continue).

In the lukashenko incident, there were agents on board the plane. The emergency diversion wasn't to the nearest airport, but to the more distant Minsk. It's a hijacking. The bolivian case was not. No matter how shady the purposes were of the US trying to force the plane down, it doesn't chanhge that. They have every right to ASK their allies Spain and France to close their airspace for the Bolivian presidents' aircraft. Spain and France had every right to refuse (Of course knowing that their diplomatic relations with the US could take a hit).

Stop making this silly comparison please.

Don't be silly - Belarus is a sovereign state, they control their airspace and they had every right to land that plane down. Assange made US looked stupid in that incident while Lukashenko made Protasevich looked stupid yesterday.

btw nobody sane is believing that US wouldn't force to land plane flying over US with Snowden in it - but Snowden isn't that stupid I guess.

This is about might, not right. Both the US and Belarusian governments are obviously able and willing to kidnap people, that doesn't mean they have that right.

Sovereignty is likewise about might and not right. They are sovereign because they can do things like this. Anyone who can reliably do things like this in given area is sovereign, but that doesn't mean that anyone has the right to do things like this. Might does not make right.

A said 'right' in the sense that they are free to do it like any other state - Lukashenko isn't nice guy at all but he didn't do anything unusual here - shooting that plane down would be extraordinary, but forcing it to land isn't significantly different than crap that was brought down on Assange or Snowden.

I'm not saying either instance was right - I'm saying they are quite different kinds of wrong.

The Snowden story is plausible - but it's still hypothetical. And of course the same international community (of US allies) that would resist extraditing Snowden today, would protest if the US forced a plane between two other countries and full of their citizens to land in the US.

All that aside: the focus shouldn't be taken away from the fact that the real crime is arresting an opposition journalist/activist.

US allies kept CIA black sites on their territory without raising a voice (I guess they were very happy to prove their usefulness to the big boss), I certainly doubt they would protest for landing a plane for a few hours.

They both are hijacking using your definition.

Neither were in my opinion.

In both states used the powers they had to force a plane to land. Very wrong on both cases. In both cases they had the right.

Don't try to muddle the water. Morales wasn't a hijack because they were notified before they got to the denied airspace. They were free to pick another route, or come back to Russia. They weren't in danger.

Ryanair flight was coerced to land in Minsk. They didn't have a choice, the passengers were put in the harm way.

Both incident is political motivated. One is legal and safe (but a dick move). The other is brazen and dangerous.

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