Kurdish musician Ahmet Kaya's tombstone defaced by unknown vandals

Duvar English 

Unknown vandals have defaced Kurdish musician Ahmet Kaya's tombstone in Paris, people who visited his grave recently reported.

Footage shared on Nov. 13 showed that the vandals wrote "Turkey" on the gravestone, indicating that the motive was racist. 

The vandalism came days before his death anniversary on Nov. 16. 

Born in 1957, Kaya became a legendary singer in Turkey. He was forced to leave the country in 2000 after getting subjected to racist attacks and court cases due to his Kurdish identity and moved to France, where he died on Nov. 16, 2000. 

Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) deputy Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu shared the footage of the gravestone and condemned the attack. 

"As if attacking him with knives and forks wasn't enough when he was alive, now they're attacking his grave," Gergerlioğlu said, referring to an award ceremony in 1999 where participants threw forks at Kaya for wanting to sing in Kurdish. 

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