The Council of Europe Platform to promote the protection of journalism and safety of journalists has raised an alert over blogger Alexander Lapshin’s detention and his expected trial in Azerbaijan. The reads:

Aleksandr Lapshin, an Israeli-Russian travel blogger, was detained in Minsk, Belarus, on 15 December 2016, at the request from Azerbaijan and extradited to Baku on 7 February 2017.

Lapshin faces a maximum sentence of eight years in prison on charges of illegally crossing Azerbaijan’s state borders during his April 2011, October 2012, and June 2016 visits to Nagorno-Karabakh, and for making “anti-state calls to the public” and criticizing Azerbaijani policies.

Currently, Alexander Lapshin is in the Kurdakhani Pre-trial Detention Centre of the Baku Investigative Prison Nr 1.