France must fully investigate murder of Azerbaijani dissident, says Amnesty

Mulhouse (France) (AFP) – French authorities must examine all possible motives for the killing of an Azerbaijani dissident stabbed to death at his home in eastern France and better protect these exiles, Amnesty International said.

Published on: 03/10/2024 – 11:23

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Vidadi Isgandarli, who had obtained asylum in France, severely criticized the Azerbaijani authorities of President Ilham Aliyev and maintained a blog and a very popular YouTube channel.

The 62-year-old man was attacked on Sunday while he was sleeping in his apartment in Mulhouse (east) by three masked individuals and died on Tuesday from his injuries, the regional prosecutor’s office said.

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

“We call on the French authorities to examine all possible motives for his assassination, including his criticism of the Azerbaijani president and government, which motivated his exile.”

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

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

“The French government must provide effective protection to people at risk who seek international protection in France,” she said.

International attention on the rights situation in Azerbaijan – led by Aliyev since the death of his father Heydar in 2003 – is expected to intensify in the coming weeks. This gas-rich Central Asian state hosts COP 29, the United Nations conference on climate change, in November.

Aliyev, whose vice president is his wife Mehriban Aliyeva, is regularly accused by 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, former Europe minister, wrote on X.

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

Azerbaijani activists have also called for thorough investigations into other deaths of anti-Aliyev activists in Europe.*

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