FRANCE: HUNDREDS OF MOUNRNERS ATTEND FUNERAL OF TURKISH KURD PROTEST SINGER AHMET KAYA IN PARIS

Record ID: 648427

  • Title: FRANCE: HUNDREDS OF MOUNRNERS ATTEND FUNERAL OF TURKISH KURD PROTEST SINGER AHMET KAYA IN PARIS
  • Date: 18th November 2000
  • Summary: PARIS, FRANCE (18 NOVEMBER, 2000) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. PULL OUT: CROWD OF MOURNERS AT PERE LACHAISE CEMETERY 0.14 2. SV: FAN WITH PORTRAIT OF AHMET KAYA, THE TURKISH PROTEST SINGER WHO DIED 0.16 3. SV: CROWD 0.20 4. SV: GULTEN KAYA, WIFE OF DECEASED MUSICIAN 0.27 5. PAN: CEMETERY FILLED WITH PEOPLE 0.33 6. HAS: MOURNER WEEPING 0.39 7. SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (French) A MOURNER SAYING: "For the Kurdish people, this is a disaster. For us, Ahmet Kaya was a symbol of freedom. He expressed what we could not say. He was really a symbol, he was afraid of nothing. He was a giant of music, he was the voice." 1.01 8. VARIOUS OF PALLBEARERS CARRYING COFFIN TO GRAVE/MOURNERS CLAPPING THEIR HANDS TO THE SOUNDS OF KAYA'S MUSIC (4 SHOTS) 2.01 9. SV: COFFIN AT GRAVE 2.13 10. SV: KAYA'S WIFE, GULTEN KAYA APPROACHES GRAVE 2.24 11. SCU/CU: GULTEN KAYA BURYING HER FACE IN FLOWERS HEAPED ON COFFIN AND CRYING (2 SHOTS) 2.45 12. SV: MAN PLACING HUGE PORTRAIT OF KAYA AT GRAVE 2.59 13. SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (French) A FAN SAYING: "All I can say is that he was a man of peace and the people who are here are for peace. That's it. That's all I can say." (BEGINS TO CRY) 3.16 14. SV: FLOWERS ON COFFIN 3.21 15. CU/SCU: GULTEN KAYA CRYING AND LEAVING (2 SHOTS) 3.38 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 3rd December 2000 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: PARIS, FRANCE
  • Country: France
  • Reuters ID: LVA4NW93BFDPSYCWGHGLKBO6JIJ2
  • Story Text: A Turkish protest singer wanted in his own country for
    alleged links to separatist Kurdish rebels has been buried in
    Paris on Saturday (November 18) after dying of a heart attack.


    Hundreds of mourners followed the funeral cortege of
    Ahmet Kaya, a forty-three-year-old ethnic Kurd, from Place de
    la Republique in central Paris to the Pere Lachaise cemetery
    on Saturday (November 18).

    Kaya, whose music was loved by both Kurds and Turks,
    collapsed and died at his home in the south of Paris during
    the morning.

    His wife, Gulten Kaya, buried her face in the heaps of
    flowers laid on the coffin and wept.

    A huge photograph of the musician leaned against his
    tombstone.

    Pere Lachaise cemetery is the last resting place of such
    musical luminaries as French singer Edith Piaf, French actor
    Yves Montand, Polish-born composer Frederic Chopin and U.S.

    rock star Jim Morrison.

    Kaya had been living abroad since early 1999 when he was
    charged with aiding and abetting rebels of the Kurdistan
    Workers Party (PKK).

    Kaya made waves for speaking out in favour of the Kurdish
    language at an awards ceremony in Turkey in 1997 at which he
    was named best Turkish musician of the year.

    Newspapers often pictured him performing in Europe in
    front of rebel flags and pictures of PKK leader Abdullah
    Ocalan.

    Turkish authorities show little tolerance for Kurdish
    dissidents and for those suspected of sympathy for the PKK or
    its one-time aim of self-rule for the mainly-Kurdish southeast
    of Turkey. The PKK has said it now seeks to apply political
    pressure on Turkey to grant Kurdish cultural rights.


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