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NKR Human Rights Defender Ruben Melikyan considers Belarus’ decision to extradite blogger Alexander Lapshin to Azerbaijan as a serious issue of human rights.

Since the end of December the NKR Ombudsman’s Office has closely followed the developments over Lapshin's arrest and the public information on the issue.

“The available information enables us to consider the issue in terms of human rights considering it as a violation of those rights,” NKR Ombudsman Ruben Melikyan noted the aforesaid during the interview conducted by Panorama.am.

Notably yesterday Belarusian prosecutors ruled to extradite Russian-Israeli blogger Alexander Lapshin to Azerbaijan in order to bring him to criminal liability under Articles 281.2 and 318.2 of Azerbaijani Criminal Code. Chairman of the RA Chamber of Advocates has published the extract of the decision.

This decision has made NKR Ombudsman and his staff more committed to the approach.

“We can draw conclusions that we are dealing with two serious issues_ freedom of speech and defense of human rights. This is simply an attempt to silence free speech about Artsakh, as when studying the accusations faced by Labshin we become more convinced in our positions. It is also a mechanism to restrict the visits to Karabakh. This is just a badly covered jurisprudence by the Azerbaijani authorities,” R. Melikyan noted.

“They violate the most fundamental principles of human rights, namely the freedom of speech, the principle of respect, freedom of movement. In this case the best response by the international advocacy groups would be forming an additional motivation on a principled basis aimed at increasing the visitor numbers and the interest towards Artsakh,” he added.

He called on the human rights groups of Armenia to spotlight this approach and to deliver this message to their foreign partners.

“We ourselves are working on this issue,” he noted.

To note the working group formed by Armenia’s Chamber of Advocates is working on this matter and will provide professional assistance to Lapshin within its liabilities.