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Alexander Lapshin claims Azerbaijan might be behind ‘suicide’ of CNN’s Anthony Bourdain for Artsakh episode of Parts Unknown

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YEREVAN, JUNE 8,. Russian-Israeli travel blogger Alexander Lapshin, the man who was under global media spotlight for his arrest and extradition to Azerbaijan for visiting Artsakh, claims that celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain’s death may somehow be connected with the latter’s visit and filming of CNN’s Parts Unknown in Artsakh.

Bourdain was officially blacklisted by Azerbaijan after filming the show in Artsakh. Azerbaijan declared Bourdain persona non grata in November of 2017. The world-renowned chef, bestselling author and multiple Emmy-winning television personality traveled to Armenia and Artsakh in October of 2017 and the episode aired in May of 2018. System Of A Down’s Serj Tankian, the Armenian-American rock star, was Bourdain’s guide during the visit.

“Do you think this is connected somehow to his movie about Karabakh and Armenia?

This man was widely criticized by Azerbaijan authorities because of that. Btw, just recently I have published the article in Le Monde called “Azerbaijani regime kidnaps and kills anyone it dislikes” and few days later this guy is gone by “suicide”. Just short remind – they called an attempt of my murder in Baku prison as “suicide” as well) p.s Anton Nosik, the well known Russian journalist “suddenly” gone after his Karabakh visit as well, not to mention that Azerbaijan threatened him as well”, Lapshin said on Facebook after news on Bourdain’s death began emerging.

CNN confirmed Bourdain’s death on Friday and said the cause of death was suicide. Bourdain was in France working on an upcoming episode of his award-winning CNN series, “Parts Unknown.” His close friend Eric Ripert, the French chef, found Bourdain unresponsive in his hotel room Friday morning. Mr. Bourdain was found in his hotel room at Le Chambard, a luxury hotel in Kaysersberg, a village in the Alsace region of eastern France, according to a prosecutor in the nearby city of Colmar. The prosecutor, Christian de Rocquigny du Fayel, said the cause of death was hanging. “At this stage, we have no reason to suspect foul play,” he said. Mr. Bourdain had traveled to Strasbourg in France, near the country’s border with Germany, with a television production crew to record an episode of his show “Parts Unknown” on CNN, the network said. “It is with extraordinary sadness we can confirm the death of our friend and colleague,” CNN said in a statement.

 

Alexander Lapshin: Let’s hand over Alaska to Azerbaijan

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Blogger Alexander Lapshin  who was jailed in Azerbaijan for visiting Karabakh and later pardoned by Ilham Aliyev commented on “recognition” of Karabakh as “Azerbaijani territory”.

In his message on Facebook, blogger, who is national of Russia and Israel, said he had been shocked not only by “obscurantism of the early Islamic caliphate, hidden under modern shopping mall, but humiliation of Azerbaijanis asking me to agree to recognize Karabakh as their territory.”

He added that Azerbaijanis have unfortunately turned from cultural national of poets and merchants into nervous and revengeful people convinced that “their future depends on Sasha Lapshin”.

“Do they seriously believe that I can decide anything in your conflict with Armenia and the world?” he wonders. “Today I am so generous to hand over…. Alaska to Azerbaijan!”

Lapshin said he could imagine how much Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko got in exchange for something with help of which Azerbaijan spoiled relations with Armenia and Russia, let alone Israel.

“And this because of a blogger. That’s where the money from the Caspian oil is plunging, while the people are begging for $ 100-150 a month,” he wrote.

The Alexander Lapshin Case: Extradited and Imprisoned in Azerbaijan over Telling the Truth about Nagorno-Karabakh

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Sunday, February 12, 2017
Joachim Hagopian is a West Point graduate and former US Army officer
Until a few weeks ago no one in North America even heard of journalist-blogger Alexander Lapshin. He lives primarily in Moscow but as a Russian-Israeli-Ukrainian citizen possessing three passports, Lapshin is a globetrotter who writes a blog called “Life Adventures” for the popular travel website LiveJournal. In Russia his on the road stories to off the beaten path, unusual places around the world (122 in all) have generated quite a following for their colorful and humorous portrayal of life as a foreign tourist visiting various diverse cultures and locations. But the 40-year old Lapshin is in political hot water now as a political prisoner sitting in a jail in Baku, Azerbaijan. His legal case has attracted international attention and involves high profile politics in four different nations.
On December 15th last year, Alexander Lapshin was detained in Minsk, Belarus. Viewing the blogger as a threat to “homeland security” based on his alleged “espionage,” the Azerbaijan prosecuting office had ordered the blogger’s arrest and requested extradition at the behest of Azeri President Ilham Aliyev. The travel journalist had made trips in 2011 and 2012 to Nagorno-Karabakh, sympathizing and identifying with the Armenians he met as reflected in his blog entries. Then on his social media account on April 6, 2016 and again on June 29th last year, Alexander commented on the unfairness of Azerbaijan’s territorial claims based on its attempted invasion of the disputed region, calling for recognition of the enclave’s independence, apparently a crime in violation of Azeri law code 281.2. Aware that the popular journalist’s messages were reaching a receptive audience of thousands of readers, the Baku government was growing nervous that his writings were contributing to the Nagorno-Karabakh movement for worldwide recognized independence. Thus, the reactionary oppressive state drew up a legal case against Lapshin, charging him with violating Azerbaijan’s “territorial integrity.” Baku was determined to set a harsh example of him to show the rest of the world what happens to journalists who publicly badmouth Azerbaijan.
Gloating over the victory of extraditing Lapshin and his current Baku incarceration, the deputy speaker for Azerbaijan’s legislature warned the rest of the world:
Those not reckoning with Azerbaijan, may share Lapshin’s fate.
The timing of the blogger’s detainment in Belarus came immediately following Lapshin’s Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s visit to Baku to close a $5 billion missile arms deal with Azerbaijan. With Azeri-Israeli relations never chummier, the Baku government seized the moment when in mid-December the traveling journalist landed in Minsk, a capital housing a government sympathetic to the Azeri cause.  
Another arbitrary Azeri law no one ever heard of apparently until the Lapshin case prohibits visitors from other countries to travel to Nagorno-Karabakh without authorized permission (code 318.2) from the Baku government. Of course thousands of individuals have gone to Nagorno-Karabakh since 1994, after Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a bloody six year warresulting in 30,000 deaths that Armenia won, leaving only Armenians who’ve been living there for many centuries. But since 1994 apparently Alexander Lapshin is the first and only person ever arrested for entering the disputed region without clearing the visit with Baku officials.
The long contested territory originated when Josef Stalin in 1920 gave Azerbaijan administrative control, despite Nagorno-Karabakh’s overwhelming majority population being Armenian since ancient times. And hence arose the controversy by the ruthless Soviet dictator acting by designed decree as a shrewd divide and rule strategist to facilitate autocratic control over his territorial Soviet colonies Azerbaijan and Armenia. Since the Armenians were still facing genocide, Stalin knew handing over power to the Turkish brethren the Azeris would result in further persecution of Armenian residents in Nagorno-Karabakh, otherwise known asArtsakh to the Armenians. This ancient Armenian land had been home to Armenians long before the Azeris as an ethnic group and culture ever came into existence.
The world’s first Christian nation of Armenia in 301 AD included what is a large portion of now eastern Turkey (Western Armenia), Artsakh, another Armenian enclave Nakhichevan as well as the current small nation Armenia (Eastern Armenia). Even prior to the breakup of the Soviet Empire in 1991, the residents of Artsakh submitted to Moscow a peaceful appeal for Armenian reunification back in 1988. As the pogrom killings of Armenians in Baku and other Azeri cities became more prevalent, eventually in self-defense, war broke out. Amidst the ongoing war, in 1991 Artsakh residents overwhelmingly voted for their own independence, declaring itself the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. At one point Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was receptive to granting sovereignty, but the matter was delayed by bureaucracy in the face of the unstable, chaotic dissolution of the Soviet Union. Smaller than the state of Connecticut with a population near 150,000 Armenians, the mountainous region remains a global hotspot to this day that could potentially be the incendiary igniting World War III.
Continue Reading on: http://empireexposed.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-alexander-lapshin-case-extradited.html
Joachim Hagopian is a West Point graduate and former US Army officer. He has written a manuscript based on his unique military experience entitled “Don’t Let The Bastards Getcha Down.” It examines and focuses on US international relations, leadership and national security issues. After the military, Joachim earned a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and worked as a licensed therapist in the mental health field with abused youth and adolescents for more than a quarter century. In recent years he has focused on his writing, becoming an alternative media journalist. His blog site is at http://empireexposed.blogspot.co.id/. His blog site is athttp://empireexposed.blogspot.co.id/. 
Joachim is also a regular contributor to Global Research (http://www.globalresearch.ca/),  Sott.net and LewRockwell.com. 

The Alexander Lapshin Case: Extradited and Imprisoned in Azerbaijan over Telling the Truth about Nagorno-Karabakh

 

Alexander Lapshin’s attorneys file complaint in Belarus Supreme Court

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Alexander-lapshinThe attorneys of blogger Alexander Lapshin arrested in Minsk have filed a complaint in the Supreme Court of Belarus.

Earlier, Alexander Lapshin also filed a similar complaint in the Court.

Lapshin’s attorney told Armenian News – NEWS.am that the complaints have been filed and registered.

Under the Belarusian legislation, the attorney and his/her client shall not take part in the consideration of the complaint. They will be notified about the judgment of the court.

Currently, Russia and Israel are trying to achieve the cancellation of the decision on extraditing Lapshin.

After his visits to Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) in 2011 and 2012, Alexander Lapshin was “blacklisted” by Azerbaijan. In June 2016, however, he paid a visit to Azerbaijan, but with a Ukrainian passport. Subsequently, he issued several articles criticizing the Azerbaijani authorities. Afterward, the Azerbaijani authorities issued an international search for this famous blogger. And on December 15, 2016, he was detained in the Belarus capital city of Minsk, and based on this international search.

On January 26, the Minsk city court dismissed the complaint of blogger Alexander Lapshin over the decision of the Belarusian prosecutor’s office to extradite him to Azerbaijan.