A demonstration was staged Monday in Saint Petersburg, Russia, during which the participants protested Ramil Safarov’s extradition by Hungary and his being declared a hero in Azerbaijan.   

The rally aimed to inform the public about the Azerbaijani-Hungarian arrangement and to condemn Azerbaijan’s anti-Armenian policy.

At the end of the event, the participants adopted a petition addressed to the Government of Saint Petersburg and a message issued to the Azerbaijani intelligentsia.  

To note, the Armenian community of Saint Petersburg commenced its demonstrations on September 2 and, since then, it holds continuous rallies in front of the city’s Hungarian, US, French, and Belgian consulate generals. 

Armenian News-NEWS.am reported earlier that Ramil Safarov, a lieutenant in the Azerbaijani military, was extradited on August 31 from Hungary, where he was serving a life sentence—and with no expression of either regret or remorse—for the premeditated axe murder of Armenian lieutenant Gurgen Margaryan, in his sleep, during a NATO Partnership for Peace program in Budapest back in 2004.

As expected, Ramil Safarov’s return to Baku was welcomed, as was his act of murder, by the officials of president Ilham Aliyev’s government and much of Azerbaijani society, and the Azerbaijani president immediately granted him a pardon.

And Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan announced on August 31 that Armenia is suspending its diplomatic ties with Hungary.    

Ramil Safarov’s pardoning is condemned by virtually all international organizations.