Kurdish protests continue in Paris, new clashes between demonstrators and police: 11 arrests – World

Eleven people were arrested today after clashes with police on the sidelines of a demonstration in Paris in homage to the three Kurds killed yesterday near a Kurdish cultural center in the French capital. This was announced by the prefect of police of the capital Laurent Nuñez. People were arrested “mainly for damages,” Nuñez indicated. 31 law enforcement officers were slightly injured and one protester shot in the eyebrow, he added. At around 1pm, an hour after the start of the demonstration, clashes began on the Boulevard du Temple, about a hundred meters away from the Place de la République, noted the AFP journalists. It all started with a “provocation” committed by the driver of a van, commented the prefect of police, without providing further details. At least four cars were overturned, at least one of which was set on fire, as were some garbage cans. Damage to the windows of some buildings.

In Paris the protest of the Kurdish community continues in Paris for the massacre by an elderly right-wing extremist animated by racist sentiments: in the Place de la République several hundred demonstrators waved hundreds of flags of the Kurdish nation and the PKK.

Fresh violence erupted between protesters and the police on the sidelines of the demonstration. At least four cars were overturned, including at least one on fire. Garbage cans were set on fire on Boulevard du Temple, near Place de la République. Security forces responded with tear gas as protesters threw objects.

Also featured were portraits of three Kurdish militants assassinated in Paris in January 2013. A minute of silence was observed in honor of the victims and “all Kurds who died for freedom”. Among the demonstrators many with eyes red with tears and many denunciations of yesterday’s act as an “injustice”, a “political” act and “terrorism”.

“We have no doubts that they are political assassinations. The fact that our associations are targeted reveals a terrorist and political character”, said Agit Polat, spokesman for the Kurdish Democratic Council in France (Cdkf), who also has some recriminations from address the French authorities for the lack of a plan for the safety of the cultural circle targeted yesterday by the murderous hand yesterday and of the other Kurdish entities in France. And among the demonstrators there are those who evoke an involvement of Turkey.

Clashes in Marseille at the end of the demonstration in support of the Kurds killed yesterday in Paris. Two police cars, parked in front of a police station, were set on fire. Dispersed with tear gas in the mid-afternoon, the procession, which numbered up to 1,500 people, after its arrival in front of the Bouches-du-Rhône prefecture, observed an AFP reporter. Three people were arrested and four officers were slightly injured.