European Kurdish organisations demanding justice for three Kurdish women murdered in the French capital in 2013 organised a mass demonstration in Paris on Saturday.
The streets of Paris were filled with anger against the French justice and security institutions for their silence on the murder of Sakine Cansız, one of the founders of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), Fidan Doğan, Paris representative of the Kurdish National Congress (KNK), and Leyla Şaylemez, a youth activist. The main demand of the demonstration was that the state secrecy on the file be lifted.
So what is it that makes the Kurds so upset with the French authorities? How can the case of the three Kurdish activists, shot dead in broad daylight in the middle of the French capital, be considered a state secret?
The Kurdish communities believe that France is protecting Turkey.
Let’s have an in-depth look at this massacre, its background and its consequences.
Legal Insights and Fight for Justice
The victims, Cansız, 54, Doğan, 28, and Şaylemez, 24, were each shot in the head by a Turkish armed man in the offices of a Kurdish information centre in Paris on 9 January 2013.
The sole suspect, Ömer Güney, who allegedly had ties with Turkey’s intelligence services (MİT) and was arrested after the attack, died in prison under suspicious circumstances a month before the trial was due to start in December 2016.
The case was closed after Güney died, despite investigations have revealed documents, audio recordings and witness statements which point to a contract killing orchestrated by the MİT.
The case was reopened three years later in 2019, however, the French domestic intelligence service has treated the case as a state secret and refused to disclose the elements in its possession. The partial confidentiality order on the case files remains to date.
Judges overlooking the case have asked French authorities for the full disclosure of files, but documents about the presumed killer Güney are partially or fully barred.
In January 2022, Monsieur Antoine Comte, the French lawyer leading the fight for justice for the victims of the 2013 Paris killings, spoke with Mark Campbell from Medya News, shedding light on the details of the case. The lawyers’ insights are still starkly relevant:
🔴#PODCAST| The assassinations case is still going on with new evidence coming from all over Europe in Europe networks of Turkish intelligence are trying to assassinate different people #Kurdish or #Turks because they are opponents. – Lawyer Antoine Comtehttps://t.co/rG8pfiwHB2 pic.twitter.com/7mrujhqFWu
— MedyaNews (@1MedyaNews) January 10, 2023
Second Attack on Kurds
In December 2022, three more Kurdish activists were killed in Paris, just a few weeks before the tenth anniversary of the 2013 killings.
A 69-year-old Frenchman opened fire on a Kurdish cultural centre and several Kurdish businesses, in Paris on 23 December 2022, killing three people and wounding several others. Kurdish activists Emine Kara and Abdurrahman Kızıl and musician Mîr Perwer were killed in the attack.
Connection Between 2013 and 2022 Attacks
Kurds believe that the attack that took place in Paris in 2022 is connected to the assassinations of three Kurdish women in 2013, and that Turkey is behind both attacks.
France’s statements after the second attack indicated that the 2022 shooting was a hate attack. The gunman, who opened fire on the cultural centre and on Kurdish shops on the same street, was caught by nearby Kurdish citizens and handed over to the police. The shooter was previously known to French security forces for his attacks on refugees.
However, the Kurds, who oppose the characterisation of the investigation into the incident as a mere hate attack, demanded a full investigation from French authorities and asked for clarification of the connection of the incident to the 2013 murders.
In the aftermath of the second attack, the Kurdish Democratic Council in France (CDK-F) posed 12 questions to the French authorities that needed to be answered:
Timing and Circumstances
The 2013 attack took place in the midst of peace talks between the Turkish government and the PKK. At the time, many in Turkey saw the assassination as an attempt to undermine the negotiations, which finally collapsed in 2015. The 2022 attack on the other hand came as Turkey was conducting military offences against Kurdish groups in northern Iraq and Syria and the Turkish government was implementing a massive crackdown against Kurdish politicians in the country ahead of the 2023 elections.
Growing Kurdish Backlash
After the second incident at the Kurdish cultural centre, the Kurdish backlash against France grew further. “We fought against ISIS in Syria so you could sleep comfortably in your home in Paris, but you couldn’t protect us twice in 10 years,” a demonstrator said in a video that went viral on social media after the 2022 shooting.
📌After Friday’s shooting in #Paris, the #Kurdish backlash against #France is growing; there are calls for an investigation of links betweeen this and the 2013 killing of three #Kurdish women in the same place.#JeSuisKurdhttps://t.co/Fx3Fkb5Jj3 pic.twitter.com/K0yPYkexhq
— MedyaNews (@medyanews_) December 27, 2022
The Kurdish organisations in Paris believe that France is protecting Turkey by not carrying out proper investigations into the two attacks. France’s refusal to lift the confidentiality order on the case files still prevents knowing who is behind the attack.” They accuse the French authorities of prolonging – and deliberately not completing – the investigation regarding the 2013 attack, thus enabling the second attack in Paris in 2022.
Journalist and author Erling Folkvord wrote about the responsibility of Europeans in the attacks against Kurds:
Is liquidation of Kurds part of President Erdoğan’s long election campaign?
France’s Refusal to Lift Secrecy
The Kurdish Democratic Council in France (CDF-K) organised a colloquium in the French parliament last year to question the attacks. As a part of the colloquium, politicians in the French parliament discussed the political treatment of the cases.
“The refusal to lift the top-secret classification on documents is an error. That sows doubt in our minds. If you check the definition of a terrorist attack, the triple assassination of 23 December is a terrorist attack: the use of violence with a political goal to impress the public opinion,” said Senator Rémi Féraud.
📌#Politicians in the #French parliament discussed on Thursday the political treatment of the 2013 assassination case, along with the recent killing of another three #Kurds in the heart of #Paris on Thursday.
↘https://t.co/klZvI0u1YZ pic.twitter.com/3N5ceWb26K
— MedyaNews (@medyanews_) January 15, 2023
