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Thousands march in Paris in memory of 2013 murder of Kurds

Thousands of demonstrators marched in central Paris on Saturday to pay tribute to three Kurdish activists murdered a decade ago.

Published: 7 January 2023 15:57 CET

Demonstrators gather on Place de la Republique, January 2023

Demonstrators gather on Place de la Republique during a tribute march in the memory of the three Kurdish activists who were murdered in January 2013, in Paris, on January 7th, 2023. Photo by Alain JOCARD / AFP

The march, an annual event since the killings on January 9th, 2013, came two weeks after an eerily similar triple slaying on December 23rd at the Kurdish Cultural Centre in Paris — just a few minutes’ walk from the site of the earlier shootings.

The organisers said more than 25,000 people from all over Europe had joined the rally.

They carried banners with the pictures of the 2013 victims and slogans such as “The Turkish government has massacred three more Kurds” as they walked from the Gare du Nord station in the north of the capital towards Place de la Republique, a popular spot for demonstrations.

Demonstrators hold a banner depicting Leyla Saylemez (L), Sakine Cansiz (C) and Fidan Dogan (R) during a tribute march in the memory of the three Kurdish activists who were murdered in January 2013, in Paris, on January 7th, 2023. Photo by Alain JOCARD / AFP

In 2013, Sakine Cansiz, 54, a founder of the PKK Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a long insurgency against Turkey, was killed execution-style with shots to the head.

Two other women were killed in the same way: Fidan Dogan, 28 and Leyla Saylemez, 24 at the Kurdish Information Centre in Paris’ 10th district.

The PKK, which fights for increased autonomy for the Kurdish population, is considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

Turkey is a member of the NATO and considered as crucial for the protection of the military alliance’s southeastern flank.

A Turkish maintenance worker at Charles de Gaulle airport had been due to go on trial for the 2013 attack, but he died from a brain tumour shortly before his trial was due to start, in December 2016.

Kurdish activists in France, home to the second-biggest Kurdish community in the European Union after Germany, have always alleged that the Turkish secret service ordered the killings.

In May 2019, a French anti-terrorist judge was tasked with re-opening the investigation.

The victims’ families say the probe has been hampered by lack of access to secret documents that they say France was refusing to declassify.

“France has a debt of justice towards us,” Metin Cansiz, the brother of Sakine Cansiz, told AFP ahead of Saturday’s march.

His family, he said, had lost a loved one “sacrificed” on the altar of Franco-Turkish relations.

In last month’s attack, Abdurrahman Kizil, singer Mir Perwer and Emine Kara, leader of the Movement of Kurdish Women in France linked to the PKK, were shot dead by a man named as William Malet.

People stand behind a banner with portraits of Emine Kara (C), Abdurrahman Kizil (R) and Mir Perwer (L), the three Kurds killed in a December 2022 attack in Paris, as they try, despite police blockade, to attend the funeral of singer and political refugee Mir Perwer in the eastern Turkish city of Mus on January 5, 2023. Photo by ILYAS AKENGIN / AFP

French prosecutors say the suspect, a retired rail worker, had admitted to wanting to “murder migrants”, but several Kurds who spoke to AFP said they suspected a “terror” act orchestrated by the Turkish state.

The murders sparked a major demonstration by Kurds in Paris on December 24th.

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The French Jewish community, the third largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials.

“National police in Rouen neutralised early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6.45 am to reports of “fire near the synagogue”, a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died”.

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7th attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism”.

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.