[SpaceRaccoon]

Morales plane was searched. If Snowden was on it, he would have been detained.

It's not that Belarus' actions are admissable. It's that the West is acting in a hypocritical way.

If Belarus had as much power as the US, they surely would have followed the same route and forced all the surrounding nations to close their airspace. The end result would be the same.

[ddalex]

It was searched according to the local law where it landed. Nobody forced them to land in Austria - could have just as easily returned to Moscow.

The stark difference between the way the West does it is that you have a choice whenever to comply or pick an alternative, whereas Belarus left no choice.

EU, as a matter of routine, forbids certain persons from entering their airspace, has refused entry countless times to planes (some of them airborne) based on passenger manifests. Nobody would have batted an eye if Belarus would have done the same.

Pointing a gun (armed MiG fighter) at a civilian airplane based on who is a passenger using a deceptive pretext, outside laws and regulations, is several orders of magnitudes worse than lawful application of rules. If you fail to see why, read about habeas corpus.

[GauntletWizard]

The same end result achieved by legal or illegal means is more than enough difference. One is performed by the consent of many, the other by thuggery of few.