What do the corpses of three Kurdish women activists of the PKK found killed with silenced weapons at the Kurdish Information Center of Paris in the early hours of Jan. 10 tell us?

The keys to an answer are actually in the question above. The identities of the victims reveal important points. Sakine Cansiz, said to be above 55 years of age, was an important figure inside the PKK. She was among the core that founded the PKK with Abdullah Ocalan. As such, she had a substantial and emblematic position in the history of the Kurdish movement. We are told that she spent 10 years in the Diyarbakir Prison, notorious for torture and ill treatment of Kurdish prisoners, following the 1980 military coup and that she had become one of the symbols of resistance in prison. Sakine Cansiz was a prominent name among politicized Kurdish women. With all her particulars and background, she won’t be simply forgotten by Kurdish nationalists.

The second person killed, Fidan Dogan, 31, was the representative in France of the National Kurdistan Congress, which also made her a valuable target. The third victim was a younger woman, activist Leyla Soylemez, 24.

Comments by French President Francois Hollande, carried by the Turkish press, offer clues on the extent of the political activities of the victims: “This disastrous incident has directly affected three persons, one of whom I knew personally, as she was meeting with us regularly. Many politicians and I knew her.”