France must fully investigate the murder of an Azerbaijani dissident: Amnesty

French authorities must consider all possible motives for the killing of an Azerbaijani dissident who was stabbed to death in his home in eastern France and better protect these exiles, Amnesty International said.

Vidadi Isgandarli, who received asylum in France, expressed bitter criticism of the Azerbaijani authorities under President Ilham Aliyev and ran a blog and a widely followed YouTube channel.

The 62-year-old was attacked by three masked people while sleeping in his apartment in the eastern city of Mulhouse on Sunday and died of his wounds on Tuesday, the regional prosecutor's office said.

“The violent death of Vidadi Isgandarli must be investigated effectively and promptly,” Natalia Nozadze, Amnesty’s South Caucasus researcher, said in a statement late Wednesday.

“We call on the French authorities to consider all possible motives for his murder, including his criticism of the Azerbaijani president and the government, which was the reason for his exile.”

The attack came after another France-based exiled critic of the Azerbaijani authorities, Mahammad Mirzali, was beaten and stabbed in the western French city of Nantes in March 2021.

“It is the second time in recent years that an Azerbaijani living in exile in France has been the victim of a knife attack,” Nozadze said.

“The French government must ensure effective protection of vulnerable people seeking international protection in France,” she said.

International attention on the human rights record of Azerbaijan – which has been ruled by Aliyev since the death of his father Heydar in 2003 – is expected to increase in the coming weeks. The gas-rich Central Asian state will host the UN climate conference COP 29 in November.

Aliyev, whose wife Mehriban Aliyeva is vice president, is regularly accused by human rights groups of trampling on rights in the former Soviet state.

“Opponents of the Aliyev regime have already been attacked in France,” French centrist MEP Nathalie Loiseau, a former Europe minister, wrote on X.

“Today one of them is dead. COP29 in Baku is the COP of shame.”

Azerbaijani activists have also called for a full investigation into further deaths of anti-Aliyev activists in Europe.*

They include Bayram Mammadov, who Turkish authorities say drowned in Istanbul in 2021, and Huseyn Bakikhanov, who Georgian authorities say fell from a hotel in Tbilisi the same year.

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