Tuesday, January 17 2017 13:27

ArmInfo. Russia is against criminalization of journalists or simply private persons visiting any region, Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister stated at the  annual press conference in Moscow , commenting the detention of  Russian-Israeli blogger Alexander Lapshin in Minsk due to  Azerbaijan's request for his visit to Nagorno Karabakh. 

Second, we are against extradition of Russian nationals arrested in  any country, to third countries. We had consular contact with  Lapshin, we know that he is also an Israeli citizen and Israeli  diplomats had contact with him as well. We will take all the steps to  solve this situation within the respect to all the rights of Russian  citizen, which is also an Israeli citizen," Lavrov accentuated. 

He reminded also, that Russia and Belarus are alliance countries, and  there is a principal decision taken to equalize the rights of all the  citizens of two countries in all the aspects. "We have our citizen  under detention in Belarus, he is in the zone of consular  accessibility and we work in a close contact with Israeli diplomats,"  Lavrov summarized. 

To remind, 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. 

On January 16  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.