Kurd protesters clash with police as cars are overturned and fires lit

Kurd protesters clash with riot police as cars are overturned and fires lit in angry demonstrations after far-right gunman killed three at Kurdish cultural centre

  •  Angry protestors have lit fires and overturned cars in central Paris today 
  • Follows a massacre at a cultural centre yesterday by 69-year-old gunman 
  • Community is said to be ‘shocked’ and police have held meetings with leaders 

Furious protestors have lit fires and overturned cars as they clash with riot police in the wake of a fatal racist shooting in Paris. 

Demonstrators protested near Republic Square as politicians spoke at a peaceful protest earlier today. 

Clashes broke out as some demonstrators left the square, throwing projectiles at police who responded with tear gas.

A gunman carried out the killings at a Kurdish cultural centre and nearby cafe on Friday in a busy part of Paris’ 10th district. 

Fires were lit as demonstrations turned violent. Riot police also clashed with protestors yesterday evening after the news of the shooting first broke

Several cars were overturned after Kurdish activists, left-wing politicians and anti-racism groups held a protest Saturday in central Paris

Police arrested a 69-year-old man who the authorities said had recently been freed from detention while awaiting trial for a sabre attack on a migrant camp in Paris a year ago.

Following questioning of the suspect, investigators had added a suspected racist motive to initial accusations of murder and violence with weapons, the prosecutor’s office said on Saturday.

The murders have stunned a community preparing to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the unresolved murder of three activists. 

After an angry crowd clashed with police on Friday afternoon, the Kurdish democratic council in France (CDK-F) organised a gathering on Saturday at Republic Square.

Thousands gathered Saturday at the Place de la Republique in eastern Paris, waving a colourful spectrum of flags representing Kurdish rights groups, political parties and other causes. 

Fires have been lit and projectiles were thrown by angry protestors after a gunman killed three people yesterday

French riot police deployed tear gas and other riot police to try to contain the crowds of furious protestors after the Kurdish community said it does not feel safe

Fires were lit and cars overturned this afternoon as a peaceful demonstration became violent 

A person throws a projectile as anger once again spills into the streets after a massacre in a Kurdish Cultural Centre

French riot police have been deployed again today to contain the crowds of angry Kurdish demonstrators

Politicians made speeches at the peaceful protest earlier today before some demonstrators violently escalated proceedings

The ‘far-right’ gunman killed three at the Kurdish Cultural Centre near the Gare Du Nord in central Paris

The gathering was largely peaceful, though some youths threw projectiles and skirmished with police firing tear gas. Some protesters shouted slogans against the Turkish government. 

‘We know that we are under threat, Kurds in general, Kurdish activists and militants. France owes us protection,’ Berivan Firat, a spokesperson for the CDK-F told BFM TV.

Friday’s murders came ahead of the anniversary of the killings of three Kurdish women in Paris in January 2013.

An investigation was dropped after the main suspect died shortly before coming to trial, before being re-opened in 2019.

‘The Kurdish community is afraid. It was already traumatized by the triple murder (in 2013). It needs answers, support and consideration,’ David Andic, a lawyer representing the CDK-F told reporters on Friday.

Kurdish representatives, who met with Paris’ police chief on Saturday morning, reiterated their call for Friday’s shooting to be considered as a terror attack.

TERROR IN FRANCE: HOW ATTACKS HAVE UNFOLDED OVER FIVE YEARS

May 28, 2021: Islamist knifeman who stabbed a policewoman and critically injured her and then went on the run with her handgun, wounding two other officers

April 23, 2021: Knifeman screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’ stabs policewoman to death outside Paris police station

October 31, 2020: Greek orthodox priest is seriously wounded in Lyon after being shot

October 29, 2020: An attacker with a knife killed three people and wounded several others at a church in Nice.

Brahim Aouissaoui from Tunisia was shot by police and arrested.

October 16, 2020: Middle school teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded by a Chechen Muslim refugee.

Paty’s attacker Abdoullakh Abouyedovich Anzorov said he wanted to punish him for showing pupils cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a civics lesson.

Sept 25, 2020 – Two people are stabbed and wounded in Paris near the former offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, where Islamist militants carried out a deadly attack in 2015. A man originally from Pakistan was arrested 

Oct. 3, 2019 – Mickael Harpon, a 45-year-old IT specialist with security clearance to work in the Paris police headquarters, killed three police officers and one civilian employee before being shot dead by police. He had converted to Islam about 10 years earlier.

March 23, 2018 – A gunman kills three people in southwestern France after holding up a car, firing on police and taking hostages in a supermarket, screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’. Security forces storm the building and kill him.

July 26, 2016 – Two attackers kill a priest and seriously wound another hostage in a church in northern France before being shot dead by French police. Francois Hollande, who was France’s president at the time, says the two hostage-takers had pledged allegiance to Islamic State.

July 14, 2016 – A gunman drives a heavy truck into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in the French city of Nice, killing 86 people and injuring scores more in an attack claimed by Islamic State. The attacker is identified as a Tunisian-born Frenchman.

June 14, 2016 – A Frenchman of Moroccan origin stabs a police commander to death outside his home in a Paris suburb and kills his partner, who also worked for the police. The attacker told police negotiators during a siege that he was answering an appeal by Islamic State.

Nov. 13, 2015 – Paris is rocked by multiple, near simultaneous gun-and-bomb attacks on entertainment sites around the city, in which 130 people are killed and 368 are wounded. Islamic State says it was responsible for the attacks. Two of the 10 known perpetrators were Belgian citizens and three others were French.

Jan. 7-9, 2015 – Two Islamist militants break into an editorial meeting of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on Jan. 7 and rake it with bullets, killing 12 people. Another militant kills a policewoman the next day and takes hostages at a supermarket on Jan. 9, killing four before police shoot him dead.

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