Thousands of people attended a demonstration in Paris today to commemorate the victims of an attack on an office of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in January 2013 in the French capital. The annual commemoration march received sad topicality shortly before Christmas following another attack that killed three people near a Kurdish cultural center.
The march therefore took place this year under a large security presence. In the followingnoon, the demonstrators gathered for a central rally on the Place de la Republique.
While the organizers spoke of at least 25,000 participants, the police assumed around 10,000 demonstrators. According to AFP reporters, around 1,200 people took to the streets in the southern French city of Marseille.
Indeed 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, the co-founder of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is considered a “terrorist organization” in Turkey and is also on a corresponding EU list.
The alleged perpetrator of the triple murder was said to have connections to the Turkish secret service. However, he died in custody before the trial. The case was never fully solved.
Many Kurds assume that the December 23 attack was controlled by the Turkish state. The 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 robbery at his apartment.
