Following police raids targeting Kurds in France, various protests were held in different cities in the country.
The Revolutionary Youth Movement (TCŞ) and the Young Women’s Struggle Movement (TEKO-JIN) – known to both be ‘pro-Kurdish’ progressive youth organisations in France – organised protests in Marseille and Toulouse. The young Kurdish activists gathered in front of the St. Charles train station and handed out brochures as part of their protest.
They issued a statement and expressed concern over activists being detained after police raided a pro-Kurdish organisation and the homes of Kurdish activists in Marseille and Paris. “These pressures will not make us quit our struggle”, the protesters in Marseille stated.
Kurdish protestors in Toulouse carried a banner that read: “Whether it is Turkey or France, fascism is the same”. Another banner included a photograph of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan. They gathered before the Governor’s Office building in Toulouse. “The French government tries to renew its relations with Turkey through its pressure against Kurds”, the protestors stated.
CCAF: ‘No to Milli Gorus, yes to progressive Kurds’
The Coordinating Council of Armenian Organisations in France (CCAF) also condemned the repressive actions targeting the Kurds in France even as the French state is reportedly providing a subsidy to the ultra-nationalist Turkish association ‘Milli Gorus’ (‘National Vision’) to build a mosque in Strasbourg.
The CCAF issued a ‘No to Milli Gorus, yes to progressive Kurds’ statement on 24 March, following the arrest of a dozen Kurds accused of “terrorism” in Marseille, Paris and Draguignan on Tuesday 23 March. The CCAF invited “the Ministry of the Interior to show consistency by matching its position against Islamist separatism with political support, not hostility, towards the representatives of the peoples of Turkey who are fighting for democracy and against jihadism”.
Medya News is publishing the full 24 March CCAF National Bureau ‘No to Milli Gorus, yes to progressive Kurds’ statement below:
“The CCAF denounces in the strongest possible terms the subsidy granted to the ‘Milli Gorus association’ with the aim of building the Strasbourg Mosque, which is destined to become the ‘largest in Europe’. The CCAF is indignant that the Strasbourg City Council encourages the projects of an organisation which not only refused to sign the ‘Charter of the Republic’, but which, well beyond its religious proselytism, constitutes one of the essential vectors of Turkish ultra-nationalism on the territory, and one of the main breeding grounds of the Grey Wolves, an organisation that was dissolved last November.
“The CCAF encourages the French authorities to be very firm in this matter, while also being concerned about their hostile initiative on 23 March against the representatives of a Kurdish organisation in France which, whilst fighting against the Erdogan regime, defends the values of secularism and the Republic. It calls on the Ministry of the Interior to show consistency by matching its position against Islamist separatism with political support, not hostility, towards the representatives of the peoples of Turkey who are fighting for democracy and against jihadism”.
