Protest held in front of Belarusian Embassy to Armenia in support for blog writer Lapshin
ArmInfo. A protest was held in front of the Belarusian Embassy to Armenia in support for
Russian-Israeli blog writer Alexander Lapshin, who was arrested by the Belarusian authorities on Baku's demand.
The protesters demanded to meet with Belarusian Ambassador to Armenia
Igor Nazaruk for handing over a letter to him, however the diplomat
refused to meet them. Youth Branch of ARF Dashanktsutyun and "Nikol
Aghbalyan" student union initiated the protest. The letter
particularly reads: "Upon Azerbaijan's demand citizen of Israel and
Russia Alexander Lapshin was detained in Minsk on December 15. He is
accused of visiting Nagorno Karabakh without receiving 'permission'
from Azerbaijan. Lapshin is included in Baku's black list and a
criminal case is pressed against him for violating territorial
integrity of Azerbaijan. We demand from the law enforcement bodies of
Belarus not to give in to Azerbaijan's deceptive accusation and
respect territorial integrity of Nagorno-Karabakh and people's right
to self- determination. We urge Belarusian authorities to take an
unbiased and comprehensive approach".
Earlier the Chamber of Advocates of Armenia formed a professional
group, which found Alexander Lapshin's extradition on the demand of
the chief prosecutor of the Republic of Azerbaijan intolerable as it
contradicts to the claims of the international and intrastate legal
acts.
In the middle of December the citizen of the Russian Federation
Alexander Lapshin has been arrested in the Republic of Belarus with
the purpose of extradition on the demand of Azerbaijan for visiting
Nagorno-Karabakh and making notes about those visitations in his
blog.
General Prosecutor's Office of Belarus informed earlier that the
issue of extraditing Lapshin to Azerbaijan is being studied but no
decision has been made yet.