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“Dear colleagues, before the approval of our agenda, I demand that we really need to discuss an unprecedented phenomenon in this part-session, especially since a major theme of it is the protection of journalists and other media representatives. That phenomenon is seen in the arrest of Belarus blogger Alexander Lapshin. I will remind you that Lapshin has dual Russian-Israeli citizenship, and he was arrested by Azerbaijan’s President Aliyev’s order in Minsk for having visited Nagorno-Karabakh in 2011 and 2012 for holding journalistic investigation. I think that it’s high time that the Assembly eventually refers to such shameful and disgraceful phenomenon as is the so-called Azerbaijan blacklist, which today includes more than 600 names of persona non grata, including some 180 journalists who visited Nagorno-Karabakh in the course of their work as journalists.

Dear colleagues, I would like to ask you natural questions: how many thousands of people are still to be listed on Azerbaijan’s shameful blacklists? How many other journalists and media representatives will be sought by Interpol with a view to being sanctioned for visiting the NKR and exercising their profession and freedom of the press? When will our Organisation finally wake up from its lethargic slumber and react to such scandalous practice in the name of the protection of journalists and media representatives?

And it is at least doubtful that the Council of Europe has a platform for the safety of journalists, which warns the public at large about violations of journalists’ rights, but here, for completely unacceptable reasons, and in a shameful way, it has remained silent on Lapshin. Freedom of expression and freedom of the press are absolute values that we have committed ourselves to protect, convinced that no one has the right to prohibit a journalist or blogger from exercising her or his profession.

I call on our Assembly and the Commissioner for Human Rights to cry out loudly and express our profound preoccupation in our disagreement vis-à-vis the authorities of Belarus to ensure that the transfer to Azerbaijan of the blogger Lapshin is suspended.”