Syrian Kurds protest Paris attack

Gunmen opened fire at a Kurdish cultural center and beauty salon in Paris on Friday, killing three Kurds.

The suspect, a 69-year-old Frenchman, was arrested after he later confessed to a “pathological” hatred of foreigners, according to Paris prosecutor Laure Becaud.

Semi-autonomous Kurdish authorities in northeastern Syria called for Sunday’s protests in Hasakeh, where hundreds of people wielded pictures of the three victims and demanded accountability.

“Kurds are fighting oppression and even Paris, the city of love and freedom, is being massacred,” said feminist activist Evin Bacho, 33, and called for the killers to be brought to justice.

She was among those who marched through the city, chanting “The Martyrs of Paris are forever in our hearts” and repeating slogans against the “extermination” of the Kurds.

The Kurds, said to be the world’s largest ethnic group without a state, are a Muslim ethnic group that straddles Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran.

Protester Azad Suleiman, 55, told AFP that Kurds felt targeted in the diaspora and at home.

“This is a war against our people, targeting four regions of Kurdistan and even Europe,” he said, adding that French authorities strongly hoped to bring the perpetrators to justice. .

“We will not surrender to Kurdistan’s enemies and will not abandon the revolution,” Suleiman said.

Furious Kurdish demonstrators clashed with French police after the attack, reviving the trauma of an unresolved Kurdish killing in the same area of ​​Paris nearly a decade ago.

French President Emmanuel Macron has described Friday’s killings as a “disgusting attack” against Kurds and has ordered the chief of police in Paris to meet with leaders of the Kurdish community.