By Jean Eckian

On August 1, in Paris, some 1,200 people demonstrated against recent attacks by the Islamic State (IS) against the Yezidi community in Iraq.

The demonstrators assembled at the Place du Chatelet represented several Kurdish organizations, human rights groups, the Communist Party, the Yezidi community and the Coordinating Council of Armenian organizations of France (CCAF).

In his speech, CCAF Co-Chair Ara Toranian expressed the "sense of horror and indignation of the Armenian community witnessing such mass crimes."

Praising the resistance of the Kurdish people Toranian noted: “Is it acceptable 100 years after the Armenian genocide that we should see this sad spectacle of refugees fleeing their own land to escape the destructive effects of a violent and unenlightened ideology and unenlightened?"

Toranian concluded:  "Yes we support you in your struggle not only because you yourselves are in danger, but because we continue to defend a vision of the interests of the region to which we are very attached.”