Christopher Atamian
Haykaram Nahapetyan
Who’s out there? A
bewildered Hamlet queries at the beginning of Shakespeare’s greatest of
plays. In the case of Azerbaijan, a dictatorial Caviar Republic on the
Caspian, the answer is a particular type of insane unscrupulousness that
is perfectly in tune with the new wave of right-wing leaders and human
rights violators coming to power and ensconced everywhere from
Washington D.C. to Moscow. Journalists facing violence, even death, is
nothing new but this particular story takes on unique importance
because several governments (Belarus and Azerbaijan) have all
collaborated directly or indirectly in order to persecute an innocent
man—Aleksander Lapshin—as if he were guilty of murder.
