Lawmaker Sebahat Tuncel, co-leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), denounced the harsh police treatment of demonstrators.

"Don't put the barricades in front of the women or the resolution of the Kurdish issue. Put them in front of those who try to obstruct peace," said Tuncel, who was among the protesters.

"Instead of solving the murder, they are intervening on those who protest against it. This approach is a proof of how the Turkish republic defends it (the murders)," she was quoted as saying by the Dogan news agency.

The three Kurdish activists including Sakine Cansiz -- a co-founder of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK),www.Ekurd.net were shot to death on January 9, 2013 at the Kurdish Information Centre in Paris.

Eight days following their deaths, police arrested a 30-year-old Turkish national, Omer Guney, who was charged for the triple murder.

French authorities described him as an ethnic Kurd who had acted as an occasional driver for Cansiz.

But the PKK denied that Guney was one of its members.

Turkey has suggested that the murders bore the hallmarks of an internal feud within the PKK between opponents and supporters of peace talks.

Since it was established in 1984, the PKK has been fighting the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, to establish a Kurdish state in the south east of the country. Over 45,000 people have since been killed.

But now PKK's aim is the creation an autonomous region and more cultural rights for ethnic Kurds, who make up around 22.5 million of the country's 75-million population, its goal to political autonomy. A large Turkey's Kurdish community openly sympathise with PKK rebels.

The PKK wants constitutional recognition for the Kurds, regional self-governance and Kurdish-language education in schools.

PKK's demands included releasing PKK detainees, lifting the ban on education in Kurdish, paving the way for an autonomous democrat Kurdish system within Turkey, reducing pressure on the detained PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, stopping military action against the Kurdish party and recomposing the Turkish constitution. 

Turkey refuses to recognize its Kurdish population as a distinct minority. It has allowed some cultural rights such as limited broadcasts in the Kurdish language and private Kurdish language courses with the prodding of the European Union, but Kurdish politicians say the measures fall short of their expectations.

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