Turkey: Incidents of tear gas and plastic bullets at the funerals of Kurds killed in Paris

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Police prevented pro-Kurdish MPs from attending

The funeral of Mir Perver, the Kurdish singer who was murdered at the end of December in Paris, was held today in his hometown, in eastern Turkey, in a tense atmosphere, as reported by an AFP correspondent.

The artist and political refugee was buried in the presence of his relatives in the province of Mus.

The roads leading to the village where he was buried were blocked by police who prevented several groups of people – including MPs from the pro-Kurdish HDP party and people who claimed to be his relatives – from attending the funeral.

Videos posted on social networking sites and shown by Kurdish-language media show one of these groups being blocked by police. Security forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd, according to an AFP correspondent and footage from the scene. Water pressure was also used while some men, unhappy that they could not attend the funeral, responded by throwing stones.

The funeral of Abdurrahman Kizil, the second Kurd killed in Paris, was also held today in a village in the province of Kars in northeastern Turkey. Some vehicles in the motorcade following the coffin were blocked near the funeral site, according to Yeni Yasam, a media outlet close to the Kurdish movement. The same information was conveyed by the deputy of the pro-Kurdish party DBP Saliha Aydeniz.

Emine Kara, the third victim of the attack, was buried in Iraqi Kurdistan in the presence of members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

The three Kurds were murdered on December 23 outside a cultural center of their community in Paris. The attacker, a 69-year-old Frenchman known to authorities for other violent acts, said he killed them because he “pathologically hates foreigners”.

RES-EMP

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