Three Kurdish women activists slain in Paris
PARIS — Three female Kurdish activists were found dead Thursday at an information center for Kurds in Paris, all of them shot in the head in what a French official described as execution-style killings.
The victims included Sakine Cansiz, a co-founder of the militant nationalist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. Interior Minister Manuel Valls said the deaths were “no doubt executions” and called them “intolerable.”
The three women were last seen inside the information center of the Kurdish Institute in north Paris about noon Wednesday.
The alarm was raised by a member of the Kurdish community who became worried after failing to reach one of the women on her cellphone. Friends visited the center and, after seeing traces of blood on the locked door of the unmarked office on the first floor, broke in and found the three bodies in the early hours of Thursday.
Valls, visiting the center later Thursday morning, said France’s anti-terrorist brigade had been called to investigate and pledged that authorities would do all they could to “shed light on this act.”
The PKK, which demands greater autonomy for Turkish Kurds, is regarded by the U.S. and theEuropean Union as a terrorist organization.
In addition to Cansiz, the victims were identified as Fidan Dogan, 32, who worked in the information center and was Paris representative of the Brussels-based Kurdistan National Congress, and Leyla Soylemez, described by the Kurdish center as “a young activist.”
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