BERLIN: A Russian reconnaissance aircraft approached northeastern Germany on Thursday before it was escorted away by fighter jets, the German air force said.
The air force said on its Whatsapp communication channel that its Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) was activated at the Laage air base near Rostock, on the Baltic coast in the northeast.
“The reason was an unknown aeroplane over the Baltic Sea, which was flying without a flight plan or activated transponder,” the air force said in the message, which confirmed an earlier press report in Bild.
German Eurofighter jets were scrambled to identify the Ilyushin Il-20 reconnaissance plane, which was subsequently “escorted” back toward the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, from where it was first tracked.
Bild said the Russian aircraft was found early Thursday east of the German Baltic island Rugen from where it was heading toward “German air space.”
The fact that the aircraft’s transponder was deactivated presented “a considerable danger to civilian air traffic,” Bild said.
Military sources quoted by Bild said that Russian reconnaissance planes were occasionally identified off the German coast.
Many NATO nations have a QRA system to help protect their air space.
Tensions over the Baltic Sea have heightened since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
German air force wards off Russian reconnaissance plane
https://arab.news/n3jjp
German air force wards off Russian reconnaissance plane
- Tensions over the Baltic Sea have heightened since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022
Activist Peter Tatchell arrested over ‘globalize the intifada’ placard
- Arrest in London during Saturday protest an ‘attack on free speech,’ his foundation says
- Intifada ‘does not mean violence and is not antisemitic,’ veteran campaigner claims
LONDON: Prominent activist Peter Tatchell was arrested at a pro-Palestine march in central London, The Independent reported.
According to his foundation, the 74-year-old was arrested for holding a placard that said: “Globalize the intifada: Nonviolent resistance. End Israel’s occupation of Gaza & West Bank.”
The Peter Tatchell Foundation said in a statement that the activist labeled his Saturday arrest as an “attack on free speech.”
It added: “The police claimed the word intifada is unlawful. The word intifada is not a crime in law. The police are engaged in overreach by making it an arrestable offense.
“This is part of a dangerous trend to increasingly restrict and criminalize peaceful protests.”
Tatchell described the word “intifada,” an Arab term, as meaning “uprising, rebellion or resistance against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
“It does not mean violence and is not antisemitic. It is against the Israeli regime and its war crimes, not against Jewish people.”
According to his foundation, Tatchell was transported to Sutton police station to be detained following his arrest.
In December last year, London’s Metropolitan Police said that pro-Palestine protesters chanting “globalize the intifada” would face arrest, attributing the new rules to a “changing context” in the wake of the Bondi Beach attack in Australia.
“Officers policing the Palestine Coalition protest have arrested a 74-year-old man on suspicion of a public order offense. He was seen carrying a sign including the words ‘globalize the intifada’,” the Metropolitan Police said on X.
According to a witness, Tatchell had been marching near police officers with the placard for about a mile when the group came across a counterprotest.
He was then stopped and “manhandled by 10 officers,” said Jacky Summerfield, who accompanied Tatchell at the protest.
“I was shoved back behind a cordon of officers and unable to speak to him after that,” she said.
“I couldn’t get any closer to hear anything more than that; it was for Section 5 (of the Public Order Act).
“There had been no issue until that. He was walking near the police officers. Nobody had said or done anything.”
