In the district of Tilezêr in the Shengal (Sinjar) region in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, hundreds of people protested against the deadly assassination of Menal Mêrdîn. The long-time activist of the Kurdish liberation movement was murdered in Tilezêr on 2 January. The autonomous administration of Shengal had condemned the murder on Wednesday as a targeted assassination of an unarmed intellectual and called for today's demonstration.

The demonstrators gathered in front of the People's Council of Tilezêr and marched through the village with pictures of Menal Mêrdîn, chanting slogans against the Turkish state and the KDP. The autonomous administration of Shengal assumes that the attack was planned jointly. Many participants also carried flags with images of Abdullah Öcalan and photos of the martyrs of Paris.

The chairman of the People's Council of Tilezêr, Sado Şengalî, said at the demonstration that the cowardly assassination at the beginning of the year pointed to the continuation of the sinister machinations against the Yazidi community: "We know that the attacks on leading figures are being carried out with the support of the KDP. We call on our people to resist and to build an independent and free Shengal."

Hemed Bişar, spokesperson of the Association of Martyrs’ Families, addressed the merits of Menal Mêrdîn in the 43 years of his revolutionary life. Mêrdîn spent twenty years in Turkish prisons and moved to Shengal after the genocide of the Yazidi people by the "Islamic State" (IS) in 2014.