JINHA

NEWS CENTER – On the third anniversary of the Paris massacre of three Kurdish women politicians, women have held marches across Kurdistan and Turkey in protest. Police attacked the women’s actions in two cities.

Three years ago, on January 9, 2013, three Kurdish women politicians—Sakine Cansız, Fidan Doğan and Leyla Şaylemez—were assassinated in Paris. Women gathered in Istanbul, Turkey today at Esenyurt Square to remember the three women.

“Today, they killed three of our young saplings in an international plot. This is a message to women,” said Pervin Buldan, Parliamentary representative and group chair for the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), one of the speakers at the gathering. As women held a sit-in after the speeches, police attacked with tear gas and pressurized water. A large number of people have been detained.

In the city of Erzurum, Turkey, youth organization DEM-GENÇ called a march and press statement to remember the three women. The group marched with a black flag to the local HDP building.

After a statement read by activist Şiyar Aslan, tension rose between police and the crowd. A woman in the crowd addressed the police: “You don’t even allow the bodies of the women killed in Cizre and Silopi to be buried. Are you Muslims?” The woman referred to the police practice of firing on people attempting to retrieve the bodies of those killed in police attacks on cities in Kurdistan under 24-hour curfew.

At this point, a plainclothes policeman knocked the video camera from the hand of JINHA reporter Manolya Bulut, who was filming the events, threatening to arrest her. After local political activists intervened, the tension ended and the crowd headed to a film screening.

(ekip/dc/gc/cm)