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The European Kurdish Democratic Societies Congress (KCDK-E) called on people to continue protests until France uncovers all the details of Friday’s armed attack against a cultural centre in Paris.
“The Turkish state has moved the massacres it is perpetrating in Kurdistan to Europe,” the co-chairs of the Belgium-based association said in a statement about the incident, which left three people dead and three others wounded.
The organisation said that Europe’s silence over the Turkish aggression against the Kurds and France’s failure in investigating a similar 2013 attack have paved the way for further massacres against the Kurds.
The Kurdish groups believe that the incident on Friday is a continuation of the 2013 attack by a Turkish gunman who killed three female Kurdish activists, including Sakine Cansız, one of the founders of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). However, French authorities are so far treating the Friday attack as the racist act of a 69-year-old man who previously assaulted Sudanese immigrants and was sentenced for illegally carrying firearms. The suspect, who was arrested on Friday, has been put into a police psychiatric unit.
“Kurds and their friends, who rose up furiously against the massacre committed on 23 December, were mobilised in Paris from all over Europe,” the statement said. “The response of tens of thousands of people to those who think that massacres committed by the Turkish state can stop the freedom march of the people in Kurdistan, was to show that they cannot stop our freedom march with massacres and oppression. Moreover, the message was sent that this struggle will continue until the French government uncovers all dimensions of this massacre,” it added.
The association thanked everyone who joined the march on Saturday, that started outside the Ahmet Kaya Cultural Centre in the Paris’s 10th arrondissement and ended at the Place de la République.
“But we should know that this is only the beginning. We have to ramp up our struggle till we get a result,” the co-chairs of the KCDK-E said.
The association said that they will hold a vigil outside the Ahmet Kaya Cultural Centre, which is used as headquarters by the KCDK-E’s France branch, until the bodies of those killed are sent to their homeland.
