Fidan Doğan

Fidan Doğan, born in 1982 in Elbistan, in southern Turkey, was a Kurdish activist, who worked at the Kurdish information centre in Paris and also represented the Brussels-based Kurdish National Congress in France.

Her family moved to France when she was young and she grew up in Strasbourg, where she completed her university education.

She was assassinated in Paris on 9 January 2013, along with Sakine Cansiz and Leyla Söylemez. Her funeral was conducted by an Alevi dede. She was buried in her family's village, in the province of Kahramanmaraş’s Elbistan district.

Tributes after her death revealed that she was well known in political circles, as well as being close to Ocalan. The President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, made a point of receiving her family to pay his condolences in person. The rapporteur for Turkey of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly, Josette Durrieu, also paid tribute in glowing terms.

Francois Hollande's statement that he knew one of the three women assassinated in Paris (which provoked a strong reaction from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan), raised speculation that Dogan was also in regular contact with the French president.

After her death, there was considerable speculation that the killing of the three women was an attempt to derail the fledgling peace process recently set in motion between the Turkish authorities and Ocalan.