Thousands of people took part in a demonstration in Paris today to honor the victims of an attack on a Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) office in January 2013 in the French capital. The annual commemorative march received sad news just before Christmas after another attack that killed three people near a Kurdish cultural center.
The march therefore took place this year under a large presence of security. In the afternoon, demonstrators gathered for a central demonstration on Place de la Republique.
While organizers spoke of at least 25,000 participants, the police took on around 10,000 protesters. According to AFP reporters, around 1,200 people took to the streets in the southern French city of Marseille.
In fact never fully resolved
The three Kurds were shot in the head on January 9, 2013 in an office in central Paris. Among them was Sakine Cansiz, co-founder of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is considered a “terrorist organization” in Turkey and is also on an EU correspondent list.
The alleged author of the triple murder would have connections with the Turkish secret service. However, he died in custody before the trial. The case was never fully resolved.
Many Kurds assume that the December 23 attack was controlled by the Turkish state. French investigators, on the other hand, have so far spoken of the crime of a French racist. During interrogation, the 69-year-old perpetrator confessed to “pathological hatred of foreigners”. He testified that his xenophobia was triggered by a break-in at his apartment.