Status: 12/26/2022 6:15 p.m
Members of the Kurdish community in France remembered their fellow countrymen who had been shot during a silent march. On Friday, a Frenchman killed three Kurds out of “pathological hatred” for foreigners.
After three Kurds were shot dead in Paris, hundreds of people gathered for a memorial march for those who died at the scene. The demonstrators shouted, among other things, “Our martyrs will not die” in Kurdish and called for “truth and justice” in French.
They moved from a Kurdish cultural center, where a 69-year-old Frenchman said he opened fire on Friday out of “pathological hatred” of foreigners, to a place where three Kurdish women were found dead in 2013.
Several shots fired
On Friday, the man fired several shots in front of a Kurdish community center and in a nearby hair salon, killing three people. Three other people were injured in the attack in the tenth arrondissement of Paris.
Five of the victims have Turkish citizenship, one victim is French. According to the Kurdish umbrella organization Kurdish Democratic Council in France (CDK-F), all the victims are Kurdish activists.
Photos of the dead and injured were shown on the funeral march.
Image: dpa
Clashes after assassination
Many Kurds are angry with the French security forces for not doing enough to prevent acts of violence. After the shots were fired, there were clashes between demonstrators and the police near the scene of the crime on Friday, and incidents also occurred on Saturday on the sidelines of a largely peaceful rally. The Kurdish community has criticized the French authorities, saying the police should have done more to protect them.
The alleged perpetrator, who, according to the police, wanted to kill himself after the shots were fired, was temporarily taken to a psychiatric ward, but then returned to police custody. He is provisionally accused of racially motivated murder, attempted murder and violation of gun laws. He told investigators that he wanted to shoot at migrants or foreigners.