Fidan Doğan,
Sakine Cansiz and
Leyla Şaylemez,
Kurd ug:كۇردلار
Kurds ( ku, کورد ,Kurd, italic=yes, rtl=yes) or Kurdish people are an Iranian peoples, Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Ir ...
ish women's activists, were murdered by gunshots to the head during the night of 9–10 January 2013 in the 10th
arrondissement
An arrondissement (, , ) is any of various administrative divisions of France, Belgium, Haiti, certain other Francophone countries, as well as the Netherlands.
Europe
France
The 101 French departments are divided into 342 ''arrondissements' ...
of
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
.
Facts
During the night between Wednesday 9 and Thursday 10 January 2013, the bodies of Fidan Doğan (28), Sakine Cansız (54), co-founder of the
Kurdistan Workers' Party
The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement, which historically operated throughout Kurdistan, but is now primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of south ...
(PKK) and Leyla Şaylemez (24) – all three Kurdish women activists – were found in the premises of the Centre d'Information sur le Kurdistan located on 147
Rue La Fayette in Paris. Each of them were shot
execution-style with several bullets in the head and neck.
Investigations
According to investigations by French authorities, it is possible that Turkey's
National Intelligence Organization
The National Intelligence Organization ( tr, Millî İstihbarat Teşkilatı, MİT) is the state intelligence agency of Turkey.
Established in 1965 to replace National Security Service, its aim is to gather information about the current and po ...
(MİT) is involved in the murders.
The suspected murderer, Ömer Güney, was a 34 year old Turkish maintenance employee at
Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. Video cameras at the site of the murder show that he was inside the building between 00:11 and 00:56 when the deaths occurred. Gunpowder was found on his bag. Technical investigations were performed on his Nokia mobile phone and experts decrypted it and restored deleted files. They found images taken the day before (8 January) establishing that he was in the premises of a Kurdish association in
Villers-le-Bel between 4:23 and 5:33 in the morning and took pictures of 329 memberships files. Two days before, he took pictures of accounting tracing alleged racketeering activity inside the Kurdish community. While Güney initially presented himself to authorities as "Kurdish at heart" and sympathetic to the PKK, his relatives described him as a Turkish
ultranationalist
Ultranationalism or extreme nationalism is an extreme form of nationalism in which a country asserts or maintains detrimental hegemony, supremacy, or other forms of control over other nations (usually through violent coercion) to pursue its sp ...
who defined himself as a "
gray wolf
The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly ...
", a Turkish
neo-fascist
Neo-fascism is a post-World War II far-right ideology that includes significant elements of fascism. Neo-fascism usually includes ultranationalism, racial supremacy, populism, authoritarianism, nativism, xenophobia, and anti-immigration sent ...
organization which positions itself against Kurdish political projects.
A few months after these murders, an audio recording between Ömer Güney and suspected MİT agents was released on the Internet. Omer Güney also had hundreds of pictures of Kurdish activists in his mobile phone. Anti-terrorist judge Jeanne Duyé was in charge of investigations; in September 2013, her computer was stolen from her home in a burglary.
Ömer Güney was detained on the 21 January 2013. The French anti-terrorism unit Sous-direction anti-terroriste
:fr:Sous-direction_anti-terroriste">fr.html" ;"title=":fr:Sous-direction_anti-terroriste.html" ;"title="nowiki/>:fr:Sous-direction anti-terroriste">fr">:fr:Sous-direction_anti-terroriste.html" ;"title="nowiki/>:fr:Sous-direction anti-terroriste">frfound a passport with three stamps from journeys to Turkey behind the radio in a car he borrowed the day of the murder.
![Fidan Doğan](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Fidan_Do%C4%9Fan.png)
The prosecution stated Güney had frequent contacts with Turkish secret services and was proven to be involved in espionage.
The judge considered the involvement of Turkish secret services in the murder to be a possibility, but didn't establish who ordered the operation and if the murderer acted according to the will of the top management or not (in theory, this may have been an attempt to stall peace talks that were occurring between
Ankara
Ankara ( , ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, maki ...
and the PKK at that time). On 13 December 2016, Ömer Güney was moved to a hospital for urgent care connected to his brain tumor and he died the next day, five weeks before the scheduled start of his trial.
Shortly after Güney died, France decided to close the investigation into the murders. In May 2019 the investigation was reopened.
Eyyup Doru, a representative of the
Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) speculated that the primary target of the triple assassination might have been Fidan Doğan because of her social and political connections in France. Lawyer Sylvie Boitel explained that this young woman was very clever and had three cultures: French, Turkish and Kurdish. One of brothers said that she met French President
François Hollande
François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande (; born 12 August 1954) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2012 to 2017. He previously was First Secretary of the Socialist Party (PS) from 1997 to 2008, Mayor of Tulle from ...
several times when he was leader of the
Socialist Party
Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of th ...
, and had active relationships with French authorities.
Metin, the brother of Sakine Cansiz, claimed that
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
was responsible because she was killed in France and the murderer died in jail before trial, going on to point out that since the slaying neither the President nor Prime Minister of France has contacted the families of the victims.
Aftermath
On 17 January in
Diyarbakir, Turkey tens of thousands of Kurds remembered the three women in a ceremony.
Funerals
Each woman was buried in her hometown: Cansız in
Tunceli
Tunceli ( ku, Dêrsim) is a city and municipality in eastern Turkey. It is the capital of Tunceli Province, located in the middle of the Eastern Anatolia Region. The city has a Kurds, Kurdish-majority population and was a site of the Dersim rebel ...
, Doğan in
Kahramanmaraş
Marash (Armenian: Մարաշ), officially Kahramanmaraş () and historically Germanicea (Greek: Γερμανίκεια), is a city in the Mediterranean Region of Turkey and the administrative center of Kahramanmaraş Province. Before 1973, Kahrama ...
, and Söylemez in
Mersin
Mersin (), also known as İçel, is a large city and a port on the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coast of southern Turkey. It is the provincial capital of Mersin Province, Mersin (İçel) Province. It is made up of four municipalities and dis ...
.
Thousands took to the streets in Diyarbakır to pay their respects. The crowds chanted “The martyrs’ path is our path,” as the coffins were carried.
Fidan Doğan was buried in her family's village in the
Elbistan
Elbistan ( 1ca, Ablasta, Ablastayn, Ablastin, Ablistan;Aksüt, Ali"''On the Alevism of Elbistan, Nurhak, Ekinozu and Afsin - Elbistan Nurhak Ekinözü Afşin Aleviliği Üzerine - Zum Alevitentum in Elbistan, Nurhak, Ekinözü und Afşin''"- Alevi ...
district of
Kahramanmaraş province
Kahramanmaraş Province kurdish( tr, Kahramanmaraş ili ) is a province of Turkey. Its provincial capital is the city of Kahramanmaraş, the traffic code is 46.
Geography
Kahramanmaraş is traversed by the northeasterly line of equal latitude and ...
, Turkey. The funeral, conducted by an
Alevi
Alevism or Anatolian Alevism (; tr, Alevilik, ''Anadolu Aleviliği'' or ''Kızılbaşlık''; ; az, Ələvilik) is a local Islamic tradition, whose adherents follow the mystical Alevi Islamic ( ''bāṭenī'') teachings of Haji Bektash Veli, w ...
dede, was attended by around 5,000 people, her coffin wrapped in the flag of the PKK whilst mourners wore white scarves to symbolise peace. The mourners included
Peace and Democracy Party
The Peace and Democracy Party ( tr, Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi, ku, Partiya Aştî û Demokrasiyê, BDP) was a Kurdish political party in Turkey existing from 2008 to 2014.
Development
BDP succeeded the Democratic Society Party (DTP) in 20 ...
co-chair
Gülten Kışanak, and deputies
Nursel Aydoğan,
Ayla Akat Ata,
Hasip Kaplan
Hasip Kaplan (born 1 January 1954, Dirsekli, İdil, Dirkseli, İdil District, İdil, Turkey) a Kurds in Turkey, Turkish politician of Kurdish origin and former member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey for several parties, in 2015 he repre ...
as well as the mayor of Diyarbakır
Osman Baydemir
Osman Baydemir (born 1971 in Diyarbakır) is a Turkish politician, lawyer and human rights activist of Kurdish descent. He was the mayor of his home town of Diyarbakır from 2004 to 2014. He was a member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey ...
. Speaking at the Funeral Kışanak is quoted as saying; "''We promise to all Kurdish women and these three women: We will bring peace and freedom to this land'',”.
Protests
On the third anniversary of the assassinations thousands in Paris attended to protest among other reasons for justice and to denounce “crimes by the Turkish regime”. Carrying the flag of the PKK and portraits of
Abdullah Öcalan
Abdullah Öcalan ( ; ; born 4 April 1949), also known as Apo (short for Abdullah in Turkish and Kurdish for "uncle"), is a political prisoner and founding member of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Öcalan was based in Syria from ...
the marched lead to the scene of the killing, where flowers were laid in memory of the victims. Sakine Cansiz's brother Haydar who travelled from Germany for the march told the press: “Sakine's fight goes on. We will continue to march until we have obtained justice.”
See also
*
List of assassinations of the Kurdish–Turkish conflict
Further reading
* ''Triple Assassinat au 147, Rue Lafayette (en:Triple assassination at 147, rue Lafayette)'' ''by Laure Marchand. (Published by
Actes Sud
Actes Sud is a French publishing house based in Arles. It was founded in 1978 by author Hubert Nyssen. By 2013, the company, then headed by Nyssen's daughter, Françoise Nyssen, had an annual turnover of 60 million euros and 60 staff members.
...
)'' [] - An investigation into the murders and links with the Turkish secret services. It outlines the biographies of the three women and discusses the politics of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
References
{{Reflist
2013 in Paris
2013 murders in France
10th arrondissement of Paris
Deaths by firearm in France
January 2013 crimes in Europe
January 2013 events in France
Murder in Paris
Violence against women in France
History of the Kurdistan Workers' Party
2010s murders in Paris