Emine Kara, Mir Perwer and Abdurrahman Kizil: The three new 'martyrs' of the Kurdish cause
Emine Kara, Mir Perwer and Abdurrahman Kizil. Their names and faces were held high by the demonstrators on Saturday, December 24, at Place de la République, in Paris, and again on Monday during the white march organized by the Kurdish Democratic Center of France (CDKF). The three victims of the Rue d'Enghien shooting, all murdered on the steps or in front of the Kurdish Cultural Center Ahmet-Kaya, Friday in the late morning, by the alleged killer William M., have become the new "martyrs" of the Kurdish cause.
Ms. Kara, 48, known under her alias Evin Goyi, was one of the of the heroines of the Kurdish national movement
Of the three, Ms. Kara was certainly the best known. This 48-year-old woman, also known by her alias Evin Goyi, was one of the heroines of the Kurdish national movement that emerged from the ranks of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), currently at war with the Turkish state and with the jihadists of the Islamic State (IS) organization. Just like Sakine Cansiz, PKK co-founder and friend of its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, Fidan Dogan, in charge of external relations for the European Union, and Leyla Saylemez, who supervised the party's youth movement, all of whom were shot dead on January 9, 2013, on Rue La Fayette in Paris.
The PKK includes many women in its leadership positions, including in its armed wing. This is not merely a gender equality policy, but also a strong feminist commitment, which is one of the ideological pillars of the movement – along with ecology and Marxist-oriented communalism – and contributes to its aura in Western leftist and ultra-leftist circles.
A certain notoriety in feminist circles
Dignified and reserved, even austere, Ms. Kara had been the leader of the Kurdish Women's Movement of France, despite not speaking French. It is in this capacity that she was present, Friday morning, at the Kurdish Cultural Center Ahmet-Kaya to participate in a meeting – postponed at the last moment – to prepare the commemoration of the triple murder of 2013. It is also this militant activity that has earned her a certain notoriety in feminist circles in France. It is because of Ms. Kara that Laetitia and Constance, two young French feminist activists with no connection to Kurdistan, came on Saturday to pay homage, at the Place de la République, to the victims of the Rue d'Enghein attacks.
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Ms. Kara's village was burned down when she was 18 years old in the early 1990s, during a period of bloody conflict in Turkey
Ms. Kara grew up in the village of Hilal, part of the Uludere district, near the Iraqi border. Her village was burned down when she was 18 years old in the early 1990s, during years of bloody conflict in Turkey. She and her family left for Iraqi Kurdistan, which at the time was under Western air protection. Living in the refugee camp of Makhmour, 60 kilometers southeast of Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, she worked as a Kurdish language teacher.
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