Shooting at a Kurdish cultural center in Paris

Members of France’s Kurdish community and others held a silent march Monday to honor three people killed in a shooting at a Kurdish cultural center in Paris.

A 69-year-old Frenchman faces preliminary charges of racially motivated murder, attempted murder and weapons violations in Friday’s shooting, prosecutors said.

Kurdish activists hold portraits at the site where three female Kurdish activists were found shot to death in 2013, in Paris, Monday, December 26, 2022, in Paris.

A 69-year-old Frenchman faces preliminary charges of racially motivated murder, attempted murder and weapons violations in Friday’s shooting, prosecutors said.

The suspect told investigators his goal was to kill immigrants or foreigners and then planned to commit suicide, saying he had a “pathological” hatred of non-European foreigners, according to prosecutors.

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He was briefly under psychiatric care, but was later released back into ordinary police custody and appeared before an investigating judge on Monday. The suspect’s name has not been officially released, although he is identified by French media as William K.

The shooting shocked and angered the Kurdish community in France, which organized the silent march on Monday from the site of Friday’s shooting to the site where three Kurdish activists were found shot dead in 2013.

Kurdish community members say the police should have done more to protect them. Skirmishes broke out in the neighborhood where the killings took place on Friday, and again on the sidelines of a largely peaceful Kurdish-led demonstration on Saturday.

Prosecutors say the suspect had a clear racist motive for the shooting.

Anti-racism activists and left-wing politicians have linked the shooting to a climate of hate speech online and xenophobic and anti-immigrant rhetoric by far-right figures. French authorities have reported an increase in crimes and violations related to race or religion in recent years.Read More….