PARIS – Yesterday (December 23, 2022) an armed attack was carried out in the French capital Paris on Ahmet Kaya’s Kurdish Cultural Association. The assailant named M. Willam (69 years old), who came in front of the club on Engien street in the Saint Denis neighborhood, shot at the members of the club. 3 people fell to Şehîd and 3 people were injured in the attack.
THE ATTACK WAS PLANNED
It is interesting that the attack took place before the 10th anniversary of the Paris massacre (9 January 2013) in which women’s freedom activists Sakîne Cansiz (Sara), Leyla Şaylemez (Ronahî) and Fîdan Dogan (Rojbîn) were murdered. Yesterday’s attack also comes close to the 6th anniversary of the Silopî massacre (January 4, 2016) when leaders Pakize Nayır, Sêvê Demir and Fatma Uyar were killed in northern Kurdistan.
Both massacres were carried out by the occupying Turkish state and interpreted as part of plans to specifically target Kurdish women fighting for women’s freedom. After the massacre in Paris, the attacker was arrested and his connection to the Turkish secret service was revealed.
Yesterday’s attack saw the same scenes. To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the massacre of the three Kurdish revolutionaries Sakîne Cansiz, Leyla Şaylemez and Fîdan Dogan, a preparatory meeting was to be held in the Ahmet Kaya cultural association. The meeting was postponed by an hour for some reason. The attack took place in the meantime.
These developments also show that the attack was not ordinary but planned and is reminiscent of threats by Turkish intelligence services. That is why yesterday’s attack was dubbed the second massacre in Paris.
CONFESSIONS OF A FORMER COMMUNITY OFFICER
On February 16, 2021, the former head of the Intelligence Department of the Turkish Army General Command, Ismail Hakki Pekin, admitted on a TV show called CNNTurk that the Paris massacre was a “state operation” and intended to attack the leaders of the freedom movement members Kurdistans are.
Pekin answered the moderator Ahmet Hakan’s question with “The thinking team of the PKK consists of four people ” and threatened: “There are more. There is a council administration. I’m sure Murat Karayilan is at the top. There are also teams under him. The problem is that they don’t leave Qandil much. They also have members in Europe. We must do something about their European members. It’s been done before in Paris, yes…”
Ismail Hakki Pekin held his command-level position in the Turkish army until 2012 and was involved in many attacks and dirty plans against the Kurds.
ON THE OFFENDER AND THE REACTIONS FROM FRANCE POLITICS
Surveillance video shows the medium-sized perpetrator wearing a red anorak entering the barber shop and after firing a first shot, he tries to fire more bullets – which apparently fails due to a malfunction of the weapon, after which he is overpowered and arrested by the people in the barber shop. They held him until the police arrived at the scene and took the perpetrator into custody.
France’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, who visited the scene of the crime, said that the shooter’s exact motive was still unclear and said: “He obviously wanted to attack foreigners” and thus tried to label the perpetrator as a racist. It is obvious that the man is a racist, but the official media reports gave nothing on the exact background of this targeted attack against the Kurds’ struggle for freedom and their commemoration of their fallen revolutionaries.
French President Emmanuel Macron, on the other hand, spoke clearer words and said that it was a “deliberate attack” on Kurdish people. He also explained on the Internet platform Twitter: “The Kurds in France were the target of a vile attack in the middle of Paris” . It remains to be seen whether the French President wants to shirk his responsibilities here. It is clear, as the KCK co-chairs have made clear in their statement, that without the help and support of France, MIT and the fascist AKP-MHP regime cannot carry out such attacks.
In addition, French media have reported that the perpetrator was no stranger to the police. The broadcaster France Info reported, citing the police, that the man was known for two attempted murders. The newspaper “Le Parisien” reported that the Frenchman had attacked a camp for refugees last year, injuring several people and destroying tents. He was only released from prison in mid-December and has been under judicial supervision ever since.
The deputy mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Grégoire, had previously thanked the police for their “swift action” , which the CDK-F (French Kurdish Democratic Council) criticized as “hypocritical” since it was not the police but the attackers themselves who did it overpowered and arrested the perpetrator. On the other hand, the people who were mourning their three fellow human beings yesterday and today and who gathered in front of the cultural center were violently attacked by the police.
