A vigil by the Democratic Kurdish Community in Switzerland has been taking place in front of the UN headquarters in Geneva since 25 January 2021. Every Wednesday, activists march in front of the United Nations building to demand the release of Kurdish people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan. This week the focus of the protest event was the deadly attacks against Kurds in Paris.

Activists paid tribute to Kurdish revolutionaries Sakine Cansız, Fidan Doğan and Leyla Şaylemez, murdered in Paris on 9 January 2013, and to Evîn Goyî, Abdurrahman Kızıl and Mîr Perwer, murdered in the French capital on 23 December 2022.

Speaking here, the co-chair of the Democratic Kurdish Community Center in Geneva (CDK), Mülkiye Aşırbayev, stressed that massacres against the Kurdish people knew no bounds. “We know only too well that the massacre of three Kurdish revolutionaries on 23 December in the same way three women were murdered on 9 January, is no coincidence.”

Aşırbayev pointed out that the Kurdish people have no alternative but to resist and spoke about the aggravated isolation regime imposed on Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan in Imrali Prison. “There is an effort to subject the Kurdish people to the policies of isolation that are already implemented against our leader. The genocidal occupation forces that failed in the face of the guerrilla resistance are targeting Kurdish women and people in an attempt to subjugate their will. The Kurdish people are not the Kurds of a hundred years ago. Based on the freedom of our leader and Kurdistan, we will continue to take to the streets and expose genocidal policies.”