New York, July 20, 2017-A Baku court today convicted Russian-Israeli blogger Aleksandr Lapshin to three years in jail for illegally crossing the state border, global and Azerbaijani media reported.
“The Ukrainians consider this comedy around the fake presidential election as a continuation of the aggression and another provocation against the Republic of Azerbaijan”, Kuryachi added.
He was detained in Belarus last December; the country’s Supreme Court approved his extradition to Azerbaijan on February 7. Since a separatist war ended there in 1994, it has been under the control of forces that claim to be made up only of local ethnic Armenians but that Azerbaijan says include troops from Armenia’s military.
“Moreover, the mediators have also noted the role of the people of Nagorno Karabakh in determining their future within the framework of the settlement of the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict”.
Azerbaijan and Armenia remain locked in a bitter dispute over Nagorny Karabakh, with frequent exchanges of fire along the volatile frontline almost spiralling back into all-out war previous year.
Alexander Lapshin, 40, of Haifa, writes a Russian-language travel blog called Life Adventures that chronicles his trips to 122 countries, as well as his life in Israel.
The extradition and persecution against Lapshin was widely slammed by worldwide community as a gross violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of speech and movement.
Azerbaijan has been under the authoritarian rule of President Ilham Aliyev since he rose to power after the death of his father Heydar. The Azerbaijani Foreign Affairs Ministry said that his time in custody will be counted as part of his sentence.
While the OSCE Minsk Group acted as the only mediator in resolution of the conflict, the occupation of the territory of the sovereign state with its internationally recognized boundaries has been left out of due attention of the global community for years.