Sakine Cansiz

Early life

Cansiz was born around 1958 in Tunceli, a city in eastern Turkey, to an Alevi family. In her youth in the early 1970s, she began to take part in revolutionary activities, which were not endorsed by her family. She fled to Ankara where she first met Abdullah Ocalan, with whom she would work closely. In an interview, she said of this period: "In a sense I abandoned the family. I did not accept that pressure, insisting on revolutionism. That's how I left and went to Ankara. In secret of course."

Activities

Cansiz was arrested in 1979 soon after graduating high school. According to The Guardian, she was arrested just after the 1980 Turkish coup d'etat.

She was one of the PKK's founding members (code name "Sara"), and the organization's first senior female member. At the founding meeting of the PKK in Lice in southern Turkey in late September or November 1978 (with 22 persons attending), she represented Elazig, the administrative center of Elazig Province. Cansiz and Ocalan's former wife Kesire Yildirim were the only women who participated in this meeting. Cansiz was detained in the 1980s in Diyarbakir Prison and tortured there, but continued to lead the Kurdish movement while in jail, becoming a "legend among PKK members".

After her release in 1991, Cansiz stayed in the PKK camps in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley and then in northern Iraq where she fought under the command of Osman Ocalan. In addition to fighting she organized and headed women squads of the PKK there. She went to Europe in the mid-1990s. Murat Karayilan sent her there to be responsible for the PKK's European branch, first in Germany and then in France, to deal with the group's civil affairs. According to Hurriyet, she was moved to Europe after having opposed the execution of PKK member Mehmet Sener. France granted Cansiz asylum in 1998 after she had disagreed with some senior PKK figures.

Reportedly, "she was the most prominent and most important female Kurdish activist. She did not shy away from speaking her mind, especially when it came to women's issues." It was also reported that she disagreed with Zubeyir Yilmaz, the alleged financial head of the PKK, with claims made in the Turkish media that he had sexually harassed her.

Death

On 10 January 2013, Cansiz, in her 50s, was found dead with two other Kurdish female activists. Autopsy results placed the time of death for the three women as sometime between 6pm and 7pm on the day before. Their bodies were found in the Kurdistan Information Center in Paris.

The killings occurred at a time when the Turkish government was in negotiation with PKK leaders including Ocalan. PKK activists in Paris considered the murders an attempt by "dark forces" within the Turkish government to derail these negotiations. Turkish officials pointed at frequent strife within the PKK, with the Turkish national daily Hurriyet reporting that Cansiz had been in conflict with Ferman Hussein, a Syrian national and the alleged commander of the PKK's military wing. Also killed were Fidan Dogan of the Kurdistan National Congress (based in Brussels) and Leyla Soylemez, a "junior activist". The French interior minister Manuel Valls announced that the three women were all killed execution-style.

Funeral

The body of Cansiz together with those of the other two women murdered was brought from Paris to Istanbul on 16 January 2013 and transferred to Diyarbakir. A funeral ceremony for the three slain women was held in Diyarbakir with the attendance of tens of thousands of Kurds on 17 January 2013. Each was buried in her hometown: Cansiz in Tunceli, Dogan in Kahramanmaras, and Soylemez in Mersin.

Reactions

Both Turkey and France condemned the killings of the three women. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggested that the murders were done for two possible reasons: 1) to derail the current negotiations or 2) to carry out an internal execution within the PKK. Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister and government spokesman Bulent Arinc condemned the attack and expressed his condolences.