In an exclusive interview to 1in.am blogger Alexander Lapshin has told what happened in reality, as well as who initiated to start a manhunt against him, arrest him, then extradite. He spoke about the days spent in the Azerbaijani prison, the inhumane situation there, the repression and tortures of Azerbaijani political prisoners, thus revealing the true face of the clan authorities and the political situation in Azerbaijan.
In terms of the Karabakh issue, Lapshin made a conclusion from all this, it would be a great mistake to make concessions to the current regime of Azerbaijan in the Karabakh issue.
“Azerbaijan’s propaganda of hatred towards Armenians does not envisage the possibility of peaceful coexistence between the two peoples”.
“Do you think that this whole campaign against you has somehow influenced the visits of foreigners in Artsakh and the international perception of this problem in general?”.
“My arrest and extradition were initially the result of the revenge of one of the ruling clans of Azerbaijan (Gulievs), and the Karabakh issue topic has been attached to this story, with a very primitive purpose to give a political shade to it. The operation was not well-designed, they did not foresee a number of factors and their next steps, which is why they could not scare anyone not to visit Karabakh. Instead, photos of blogger Lapshin surrounded by armed special units were spread all over the world, who was transported to Baku by a special plane only because he visited somewhere 7 years ago. This is a total inhumanity from the standpoint of European human rights norms. Azerbaijan demonstrated itself as a dictatorship that persecutes journalists and does not tolerate dissent. To be more precise, Aliyev “fired on his own leg”, not even one millimetre nearer to the goal of returning Karabakh, instead it sank deeper into the swamp. As to Karabakh, in spite of my detention, twice as many tourists visited Karabakh in 2017 than in 2016.