Six years today, on 9 January, 2013, the Kurdish revolutionary Sakine Cansiz was murdered in the Kurdish Community Centre in Paris, in the heart of Europe. Two young revolutionary Kurdish women, Leyla Şaylemez and Fidan Doğan, were also shot and killed; a single bullet to the head each, execution style.

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Paris, yet more across Kurdistan, and others all around the world in rage and despair to grieve and protest.

And we will continue to protest. Every year thousands of Kurds and their friends gather in for an annual protest in commemoration of the assassination, just as we will gather this Saturday in central Paris alongside our Kurdish friends and comrades.

But all three of these women live on, and particularly Sakine, code name Sara, whose photo adorns the offices of every women’s movement office and space in Rojava. Their struggle lives on in all of us who carry it forward.

Shehid nemirin – martyrs are immortal

Read more about Sakine’s life and struggle in this great article

You can watch a full length documentary about her here…