YEREVAN (A.W.)—The Armenian Youth Federation (AYF) of Armenia and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) “Nigol Aghpalian” Student Association will hold a protest at the Embassy of Belarus in Yerevan on Jan. 16, calling on Belarussian authorities to fairly and objectively approach the detainment of blogger Alexander Lapshin and to not give in to the demands of Azerbaijan.
Lapshin—who holds dual citizenship to Israel and the Russian Federation—was arrested on Dec. 15 in Minsk by the orders of Azerbaijan authorities for his visits to Nagorno-Karabagh Republic (NKR/Artsakh) in 2011 and 2012.
Azerbaijan has placed Lapshin on their blacklist and has opened a criminal case against Lapshin for “illegally” crossing the Azerbaijani border.
The protest will be joined by representatives of the youth wings of Armenia’s various political parties as well as members of non-governmental organizations.
“On Sept. 2, 1991, the Nagorno-Karabagh Republic declared independence. This declaration was guided by the USSR acting Constitution and laws that gave the population of Karabagh the right to decide independently the issue of their state-legal status in case of a Soviet Republic’s secession from the USSR. On Dec. 10, 1991, a referendum was held where 99% voted for the independence of Karabagh. We call upon the Belarusian authorities to impartially and comprehensively approach this issue and not to yield to the unfair demands of the Republic of Azerbaijan,” read a part of the statement released by the AYF and “Nigol Aghpalian” Student Association.
The demands of the AYF and “Nigol Aghpalian” Student Association were also sent to Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Belarus to the Republic of Armenia, Igor Nazaruk.
Thank God that finally someone decided to write something about this! I read about this a few days ago and was so surprised to see Armenians both in Armenia and diaspora silent. I have zero expectations from the foreign ministry in Armenia, what happened with murderer safarov made it clear for me that we cannot expect anything from them. But why is the public so silent? This is going to set a dangerous precedent for all those who want to visit Artsakh. The dictator and his propaganda machine will use this to scare people away from Artsakh and isolate it even more. We, both in Armenia and diaspora, need to use all possible means to stop this extradition and if not successful then we can at least show it to our friends who ignore Azeri bullying and visit Artsakh that they can count on us.