Belarus to Extradite Blogger Alexander Lapshin to Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan’s Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee has brought charges against the blog­ger accord­ing to art. 281.2 of the Crim­i­nal Code (repeat­ed pub­lic calls against the state) and 318.2 (tres­pass­ing state bor­der of Azer­bai­jan by a group of per­sons in col­lu­sion or by an orga­nized group with either vio­lence or with threat of vio­lence). The arti­cles envis­age up to eight years in prison.

Being a for­eign cit­i­zen, in April 2011 and Octo­ber 2012 Alexan­der Lap­shin vis­it­ed the ter­ri­to­ry of Nagorno-Karabakh, which Azer­bai­jan is treat­ing as its occu­pied ter­ri­to­ry, with­out an offi­cial per­mit. In April and June 2016, he also pub­licly sup­port­ed inde­pen­dence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Repub­lic (NKR).

Infor­ma­tion about deten­tion and poten­tial extra­di­tion of the blog­ger appeared on Decem­ber 16.

Last Tues­day, the Min­is­ter of the Inte­ri­or of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion Sergei Lavrov spoke against the extra­di­tion.

Alexan­der Lap­shin has the right to appeal against the deci­sion on extra­di­tion either by him­self or with a lawyer.