(Bloomberg) -- An outspoken critic of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has died following an attack in France in which he was stabbed multiple times by three unidentified assailants.
Vidadi Isgandarli died in a hospital two days after the masked attackers broke into his home in the eastern city of Mulhouse early Sunday, his brother Oktay told local media in Azerbaijan. He was stabbed as many as 21 times, according to Oktay.
Isgandarli, 62, had used YouTube and other social media platforms to call for regime change in Azerbaijan after moving to France, where he was granted asylum in 2017. He often used abusive language against Aliyev and his family.
Azerbaijani authorities haven’t commented. Regional prosecutors in France are investigating, the AFP news service reported.
The death of a high-profile dissident in Europe comes as Aliyev prepares to host next month’s COP29 climate summit and amid tensions between the governments in Baku and Paris. Azerbaijan has criticized France for defense sales to Armenia as the neighboring South Caucasus states seek to reach a peace deal to end decades of conflict over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Aliyev, 62, won a fifth term as president when he called snap elections in February that were deemed flawed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He has ruled the energy-rich Caspian state since 2003, succeeding his father Heydar who was president for a decade until his death.
Aliyev has clamped down on political rivals and independent media to cement his grip on power. The crackdown has intensified ahead of the United Nations’ climate summit, according to a joint statement by Human Rights Watch and Freedom Now that documented 33 prominent cases of criminal prosecution, detention and harassment against government critics, independent groups and media.
The government in Baku dismissed any wrongdoing.
The Committee to Protect Journalists and other organizations last month called on the Azerbaijani government to release more than a dozen jailed journalists and ease the country’s repressive media law before COP29 takes place.
Many of Aliyev’s most vocal critics have moved to Europe and the US to avoid persecution at home, establishing online channels to try to galvanize support against the government.
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