Kurds rally in Istanbul over Paris killings

PanARMENIAN.Net - Several hundred mostly Kurdish demonstrators gathered for a rain-soaked protest in front of the French Consulate in Istanbul on Friday, Jan 11 a day after three Kurdish political activists were found shot dead in Paris, CNN reported.

The crowd, made up of Kurdish nationalists and left-leaning Turkish political parties, chanted "Sakine Cansiz is immortal."

Cansiz, the oldest of the three women murdered in the Paris offices of the Information Center for Kurdistan, was famous for being a co-founder of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. Turkey, the United States and the European Union label the PKK a terrorist organization.

Demonstrators also chanted "Long live Apo," hailing Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the PKK. A human wall of Turkish riot police dressed in helmets and gas masks guarded the entrance of the French Consulate, as employees inside watched nervously through a window.

The French investigation into the slayings of the three Kurdish women Cansiz, Fidan Dogan and Leyla Soylemez is ongoing.