Dhe two crime scenes in Paris are only a short walk apart. Is there a connection between the attack on three Kurdish freedom fighters on January 9, 2013 and the shooting of three Kurds on December 23, 2022? Most of the participants in Wednesday’s commemorative march, which leads from the Kurdish cultural center on Rue D’Enghien to Rue La Fayette near Paris’s North Train Station, are convinced of that.
Photographs of the six victims are held up at the head of the march. “Ten years after January 9, the Turkish state has again murdered three of our friends in Paris,” reads a banner. “The French state does not protect us,” reads another. “For the CDK-F there is no doubt that Turkey and its secret services (. . .) are involved,” it says quite officially in a communiqué of the Kurdish Democratic Council in France (CDK-F), the umbrella organization of 24 Kurdish associations. “This is the second time that Paris has been the scene of a politically motivated attack against Kurds.”
A few hours after the shots were fired in front of the Kurdish cultural center, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin ruled out the possibility of a targeted attack on Kurds. President Emmanuel Macron, on the other hand, wrote on Twitter: “The Kurds in France were the target of a vile attack in the middle of Paris.” In April 2019, Macron received Kurdish fighters in the Elysée Palace who were fighting the terrorist organization Islamic State (IS). In November 2019, he criticized the “brain death of NATO” because the transatlantic defense alliance allowed Turkish President Erdogan to conduct military actions against the Kurdish allies in Syria. Erdogan then sneered that Macron had to have his own brain death checked.
“Pathological hatred of foreigners” as a motive?
The French judiciary is not currently investigating a terrorist background. The prosecutor responsible said on December 25 that there was no evidence of a connection to “an extremist ideology”. The judiciary is investigating the willful killing of 69-year-old Frenchman William M., a retired train driver who, in his own words, harbors a “morbid hatred of foreigners”. William M. had already taken action on December 8, 2021 and attacked a refugee camp in the east of the capital with a saber. He damaged several tents and injured a 16-year-old Sudanese and a 39-year-old Ethiopian, some seriously.
However, prosecutors did not charge him with attempted murder. Proceedings were initiated against William M. for damage to property and gun violence. The man was released from custody ten days before the shots were fired at the Kurds. Much remains unclear: Why was William M. in possession of firearms? How did he choose his victims? Did someone give him logistical help?
The distrust among the approximately 300,000 Kurds in France is also so great because the judiciary never cleared up the murder of the three freedom fighters Sakine Cansiz, Fidan Dogan and Leyla Söylemez ten years ago. The prime suspect died of a brain tumor shortly before his trial. The public prosecutor’s indictment notes that the Turkish secret service is suspected of being involved in the preparations for the murders. But the investigating magistrates were also slowed down in their investigations with reference to the secrecy of the defense. The Kurdish organizations are demanding that the French government lift defense secrecy.
Further commemorative marches have been announced
The Turkish leadership is following events in Paris closely. When riots broke out on the sidelines of memorial events shortly after the most recent murders, Ankara summoned the French ambassador. He was told that France tolerated anti-Turkey organizations on its territory.
The profile of the murdered raises further questions. One of the three victims is Emine Kara, who is said to have led a Kurdish unit in the fight against the terrorist organization Islamic State (IS) under her pseudonym Evin Goyi. Kara fled Turkey and lived with her family in a camp in southern Kurdistan, Iraq. According to witnesses, the woman, also known as “Evin from the mountains”, was involved in the recapture of the city of Raqqa by Kurdish forces in 2017. She came to France injured and applied for asylum. She led the Kurdish women’s movement and is said to have coined the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom”.
“Evin fought against the Islamic State, that’s why she was targeted,” Xavne Akdogan, the co-chair of the Kurdish Democratic Council, said at the memorial service in Villiers-le-Bel near Paris on Tuesday. Several thousand Kurds from all over Europe had gathered in the commune to pay their last respects to the three dead. “Erdogan is attacking us in Paris because he was unsuccessful in the mountains of Kurdistan,” Akdogan said.
The two other fatalities, musician Miren Perwer and activist Abdurrahman Kizil, were pursued in Turkey. Both had been recognized as asylum seekers in France. The French government did not send a representative to the funeral service in Villiers-le-Bel. The mayor of Sarcelles, the socialist Patrick Haddad, called for better police protection for Kurdish community places at the mourning ceremony. A commemorative march is to be organized at the North Train Station in Paris on Saturday. “We will not rest until the murders are ruthlessly cleared up,” said the Kurdish umbrella organization.
