After the anger, the time of contemplation for the Kurds of France and even of Europe.

They were thousands to converge, Tuesday, January 3, towards Villiers-le-Bel (Val-d'Oise) for the funeral of the three Kurds killed before Christmas in a racist shooting in the heart of Paris.

At midday, the remains of Abdurrahman Kizil, Mir Perwer, a Kurdish political refugee singer, and Emine Kara, leader of the Kurdish Women's Movement in France, pushed through a dense crowd to enter a rented village hall for the occasion.

Wrapped in the flags of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and Rojava, Kurdish territory of Syria, the coffins entered surrounded by a guard of honor, greeted with tears and cries of "martyrs are eternal!".

Many Kurds refuse to believe the version of a sniper with racist motivations and denounce a "terrorist" act, implicating Turkey. 

This killing revives the memory of the triple assassination, ten years ago almost to the day, of three Kurdish activists, already in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, a case in which the intelligence services of Ankara are suspected.

Unable to enter the room where the bodies are exposed in the middle of funeral wreaths under a portrait of Abdullah Öcalan, the historic leader of the PKK imprisoned in Turkey, thousands of people followed the ceremony on giant screens installed in a parking lot.

"We are here because it is our duty, it is a fight that our parents fought for many years and that we must continue," said AFP Celik, a 30-year-old woman who has no did not want his surname to be cited for security reasons.

"We have the impression that they are doing everything to crush us, whether here or in Turkey", regretted this resident of Villiers-le-Bel, who came to the funeral with the family.

Other scheduled meetings

Kurds traveled from all over France and even from European countries to attend these funerals, coming with buses specially chartered by the community.

The organizers have set up a large security service, in addition to the security forces deployed outside.

The three deceased were shot dead on December 23 in front of the Ahmet-Kaya cultural center on rue d'Enghien (Xe).

The shooter, William Malet, was disarmed and arrested shortly after.

Before the investigators, the 69-year-old man, already known to justice for acts of violence and who had just come out of pre-trial detention for another case, expressed a "pathological hatred of foreigners" and said he wanted "murder of migrants", according to the Paris prosecutor's office.

Indicted on December 26 for murder and attempted murder on the grounds of race, ethnicity, nation or religion, this retired train driver was imprisoned in the process.

In this same place of Villiers-le-Bel, chosen because of the presence of a large Kurdish community in the Val-d'Oise and its ease of access, the funerals of the three Kurdish activists linked to the PKK and shot dead inside the Kurdistan Information Center in January 2013.

The suspect of this triple assassination, a Turkish national suspected of having acted in connection with the intelligence services of Ankara, died of cancer in detention in 2016, before his appearance before the assizes.

A white march will also be held on Wednesday, rue d'Enghien, on the scene of the tragedy at the end of December.

And a "great march" of the Kurdish community, initially planned for the tenth anniversary of the death of PKK militants, will leave Saturday from the Gare du Nord in Paris.

With AFP

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