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Assassination Of Hrant Dink

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#1021 MosJan

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Posted 09 June 2014 - 10:58 AM

bayts  turqi hamar inch tarberytyun hetaxuzel en, hetaqnnel en, tntghel yev prptel en..  inch tarberutuun inq@ / irenq  vorj en , isk  mer Hrant@  voch, yev amne angam  Hrani  masin  nyuter  mejtegh galuts  kartses  norits en  spanum iren.. mez el hishetsnum vor  karrogh en  yev  menq  voching chenq  karrogh anel



#1022 Yervant1

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Posted 10 July 2014 - 09:13 AM

And the Genocide continuous, at least in their minds waiting for a chance to make it real! 

PRO-ERDOGAN GROUP HACKS ARMENIAN WEEKLY'S WEBSITE, THREATENS COMMUNITY WITH 'ERADICATION'

15:34 â~@¢ 09.07.14

The website of the weekly Armenian newspaper Agos was hacked in the
late hours of July 8, posting a message and a photo of Prime Minister
Recep Erdogan with an Ottoman stamp in the background, the Hurriyet
Daily News reports.

The hackers, calling themselves "Herakles Fearlesleon," threatened to
"eradicate" the community and accused it of "treason," while also
sending messages of support to Erdogan.

"We have seen a lot of traitors like you. We know what you did and what
you will do in the future. But from now on the great Ottoman state will
be reborn with the master Recep Tayyip Erdogan," a first message read.

"Anti-Armenia, Anti-U.S., Anti-Israel. We will eradicate you," it
also stated.

A second message on the website's main page contained more hate speech
against the community, quoting a statement allegedly attributed to
the killer of Agos's former editor-in-chief, Hrant Dink.

"Even if there is only one Turk remaining in the world, he will be
chasing you," the message said.

The Agos website had still not been entirely fixed on July 9.

http://www.tert.am/e...014/07/09/agos/

 



#1023 Yervant1

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Posted 25 July 2014 - 10:50 AM

Turkey to portray Diaspora Armenians as 'sectarians': scholar
181023.jpg
July 24, 2014 - 10:30 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Seven years have passed since Hrant Dink’s assassination and those who planned his murder remain free. While the search for justice continues with a second round of trials, there seems to be insufficient political will to uncover the truth, Taner Akcam, Professor of Armenian Genocide Studies at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University, writes.

"Hrant Dink was killed in revenge for the assassination of Talat Pasha, the architect of the Armenian Genocide. Everything about his murder suggested a “vengeance operation” for the 1921 conspiracy to assassinate Talat Pasha in Berlin. This, for example, accounts for the decision to murder Hrant Dink in public rather than to kidnap him, kill him, and throw his remains in some remote location—the way all the other “unknown perpetrator” crimes have been committed in Turkey. The conspirators deliberately chose to come up from behind and to shoot him in the head on the street, in front of Agos, the newspaper he edited. The operation mirrored precisely how Talat Pasha was killed. His attackers wanted revenge for the murder of Talat Pasha, and they did so by targeting Hrank Dink.In the Shadow of 1915: Reflections on Hrant’s Assassination,"Akcam writes in a piece titled "In the Shadow of 1915: Reflections on Hrant’s Assassination".

"Ninety years of state-sponsored denial have so blinded the public that we cannot conceive of the relationship between the 1915 genocide and the murder of Hrant Dink. But while the Turkish government has pushed us to forget the events of 1915, state officials have not forgotten. Turks grow uneasy at the mention of “genocide,” and calls for “genocide recognition” cause us to flee in terror before some unknown retribution. We resist using Hrant’s death as an opportunity to face up to history, to see the connection between that history and the killing of an Armenian newspaper editor. We are made to forget Hrant although he is the key—the key to the 40th chamber in the Arabian Nights fable, the one that others do not want opened, the key that is given to the heroes of those tales. We have a treasure chamber in our old houses where all of our secrets are kept. And Hrant is the key to that room. If the Hrant Dink murder case is ever solved, the secrets behind the establishment of the Turkish Republic will be revealed. But, sadly, in the present government, there is neither the courage nor the will to furnish the key, because the government is heir to these “state traditions,” and the “keepers of its secrets”," he writes.

Ancam predicts that as 2015 approaches, Turkey will attempt to create an atmosphere of “reconciliation.”

"Appearing ready to resolve the Armenian issue, Turkey will portray Armenians in the diaspora as uncompromising “sectarians.” For this purpose, the Turkish state will undertake a search for so-called “Good Armenians”—and it will find them! It will use these puppets as a counter-weight to the “intransigent,” “belligerent,” and “uncompromising” Armenians in the diaspora. They will seek to pit their “Good” Armenians against the “Bad” Armenians of the diaspora. And they will use Hrant for this purpose, too. They will find the criticisms Hrant leveled at the Armenian Diaspora and use them without hesitation. Hrant’s own words will be exploited as a part of a new wave of hostility toward the Armenian Diaspora," he writes, warning: "Do not be duped by this cynical scenario."

"Hrant Dink was murdered because he wanted to deconstruct Turkey’s founding myths. Those who planned the murder—the real culprits—have received promotions and praise for doing so. The sensitivity the government expressed over the confiscation of Armenian property was never shown toward the lives of Armenians. On the contrary, they oversaw the annihilation of a people. And the situation today is not so different! 1.5 million-plus-1," Akcam writes.

 


#1024 Yervant1

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Posted 26 July 2014 - 10:43 AM

In the Shadow of 1915: Reflections on Hrant's Assassination

By Taner Akcam on July 21, 2014


The Armenian Weekly April 2014 Magazine


Seven years have passed since Hrant Dink's assassination and those who
planned his murder remain free. While the search for justice continues
with a second round of trials, there seems to be insufficient
political will to uncover the truth. With these new trials, I am
reminded of Karl Marx's famous adage about history repeating
itself'the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. Frustrating as
this may be, political will is precisely what prevents the Turkish
justice system from discovering the guilty parties.

Friends and admirers of Hrant are understandably angry: How can the
conspirators responsible for his assassination still be unknown? How
can a single murder case last so long? The reasons are suggested in a
`Tweet' posted by Prime Ministerial Advisor Hamdi Kilic on Jan. 2,
2014: `There is something known as `state tradition' in this country;
it still exists. It's enough to read a little history to understand
this.'

Kilic is right; the obstruction of justice in the Hrant Dink case is
one of these disturbing `reflexes.' If we had simply read a little
history, we would have understood what was transpiring in the trials
of Hrant's attackers. For a long time, Turks protesting Hrant's murder
resisted seeing the connection with the Armenian Genocide of 1915.
Some were even angered by those who tried to suggest such a link. Yet,
his assassins were well aware of this connection, and that is why they
killed him. In deconstructing some of the founding myths of the
Turkish state, Hrant threatened its traditions, and that is why his
real killers remain free. His murder, as Kilic recognized, was an
example of the Turkish state's `traditional' reflexes.



Hrant murdered in revenge for Talat Pasha

Hrant Dink was killed in revenge for the assassination of Talat Pasha,
the architect of the Armenian Genocide. Everything about his murder
suggested a `vengeance operation' for the 1921 conspiracy to
assassinate Talat Pasha in Berlin. This, for example, accounts for the
decision to murder Hrant Dink in public rather than to kidnap him,
kill him, and throw his remains in some remote location'the way all
the other `unknown perpetrator' crimes have been committed in Turkey.
The conspirators deliberately chose to come up from behind and to
shoot him in the head on the street, in front of Agos, the newspaper
he edited. The operation mirrored precisely how Talat Pasha was
killed. His attackers wanted revenge for the murder of Talat Pasha,
and they did so by targeting Hrank Dink.

As 2015 approaches¦ the Turkish state will undertake a search for
so-called `Good Armenians''and it will find them! It will use these
puppets as a counter-weight to the `intransigent,' `belligerent,' and
`uncompromising' Armenians in the diaspora.

We know that when Yasin Hayal, one of Hrant's assassins, was released
from prison after serving his sentence for the 2004 McDonalds bombing
in Trabzon, he spoke with his father about Talat Pasha. `Do you know
how Talat Pasha was killed?' he asked his father, adding, `Did you
know that the person who killed Talat Pasha wasn't punished? He was
set free.'

Soghomon Tehlirian, a young man who witnessed the murder of his family
during the genocide, assassinated Talat Pasha in broad daylight on
March 15, 1921, on a Berlin street. The assailant approached Talat
and, after confirming his identity, fired his pistol at the former
Ottoman Interior Minister's head. Hrant was killed in the same
fashion.

This isn't the only similarity between the killings: Although
Tehlirian attempted to flee the scene of the crime, he was quickly
apprehended. In fact, those who planned the attack on Talat wanted him
to remain at the scene and to surrender himself to the authorities.
Likewise, documents connected to the investigation surrounding Hrant
Dink's murder suggest that the plan was for his young assailant, Ogun
Samast, to remain at the murder scene instead of fleeing. Everything
was supposed to be just as in 1921. The aim was both to take revenge
for Talat Pasha's murder and to remind the Armenians that the genocide
of 1915 had been carried out in order to silence them. The plotters
were saying, `We established this Republic on the foundation of the
Armenians' annihilation, and since 1915 we do not give Armenians the
right to speak freely on these lands.'



Muammer Guler and Dr. Resit

The case of Dr. Mehmed Resit, the Unionist governor of Diyarbakir
during the Armenian Genocide, further demonstrates the connection
between the events of 1915 and the murder of Hrant Dink. I would like
to compare this man, who was personally responsible for the deaths of
tens of thousands of innocent Armenians, with Muammer Guler, who was
the governor of Istanbul at the time of Hrant's assassination in 2007
and was complicit in creating a climate conducive to the crime. It is
then possible to extend the comparison of past and present figures to
Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Talat Pasha. The comparison works despite the
fact that Prime Minister Erdogan attempted to resolve the Kurdish
problem through peaceful means and has apologized'albeit
half-heartedly and with the actual intention of needling the
Republican Peoples Party and earning credit with voters'on behalf of
the state for the massacres at Dersim in 1937-38.

In July 1915, the German Consul at Mosul reported to his superiors
that some 2,000 Christians in Mardin and Diyarbakir, the majority of
them Armenians, had been taken from their cities overnight and
`slaughtered like sheep.'1 The consul claimed to have received this
information from the district governor of Mardin and demanded that
measures be taken to prevent such crimes. The German Embassy in
Istanbul passed the information on to Interior Minister Talat Pasha,
who then sent a cable to Governor Mehmed Resit, in which he repeated
the information he had received, including the phrase `slaughtered
like sheep.' Clarifying the target of the massacres, he issued the
following order: `It is categorically prohibited for disciplinary
measures imposed in regard to the Armenians to be implemented against
other Christians.' And he demanded an immediate cessation to such
measures `that might endanger the lives of [other] Christians.'2

Despite this cable, the indiscriminate massacres of Christians in the
Diyarbakir province continued. In a July 22 telegram, Talat wrote to
Dr. Resit stressing that the government's policy of annihilation
should be implemented against the Armenians, and no other Christians.
He mentioned that `complaints are being received' and ordered the
provincial governor to cease this practice, which `will put us in a
difficult situation.'3

Armenians seeking recognition of the Armenian Genocide seek justice.
Turks striving for democracy and human rights strive for freedom. The
relationship between these goals is complex because they address
separate problems. The attainment of one does not automatically bring
about the righting of past injustices.

Nonetheless, Resit continued the massacres without differentiating
between Armenians and other Christians. Finally, on Aug. 2, Talat sent
a third telegram, complaining that reports of massacres continued to
be received and that, `despite our having sent numerous cables, the
Christians in the province continue to be killed.' He repeated that
the government viewed the situation as intolerable. In the message,
Talat reminded Resit that he was an official of the state and `as a
[state] official, he was therefore obligated to carry out the orders
he received without exception.' Finally, there was an explicit
warning: Resit would be held directly responsible `for all activities
and incidents by bandits and armed gangs.'4

These cables were transmitted in coded form. Their content was
intelligible to only a few people, including Talat, Resit, and the
government functionaries who sent or decoded them. No investigations
transpired and no sanctions were imposed against Dr. Resit as a
consequence of opposing or ignoring government orders that resulted in
upwards of 2,000 persons being `slaughtered like sheep.' Indeed, the
outcomes were the very opposite. Hilmi, the Mardin District's
official, who was opposed to the murderous actions of Governor Resit
and who informed the German Consul of these crimes, was removed from
his position.5 Even more significant, on account of their `successful'
implementation of anti-Armenian policies in Diyarbakir, the security
personnel who worked under Resit were awarded medals. A July 28, 1915
telegram orders the `promotion of some of the police and commissars
who were instrumental in the arrest of Armenian committee leaders and
other members in the province of Diyarbakir;' others received monetary
awards or medals.6

Resit, who deported and killed thousands of Syriac and Armenian
Christians from Diyarbakir and its environs, was eventually called to
account'not for the mass murders he had ordered, but for keeping
precious jewelry and other valuables from the deportation. An official
message demanded that he `send to the capital' the confiscated items,
as he had promised. An Oct. 6, 1915 telegram, with the special note
`to be handled personally,' informed Resit that the government `has
received reports that you have confiscated' monies, jewels, and other
items belonging `to the Armenians who were deported and subjected to
attack on the way.' The cable demanded information on the amount of
gold and jewelry present, as well as the manner in which their records
were kept. The subject that interested Talat was not the annihilation
of these Christians, but the fate of the valuables confiscated from
them.7

Eventually, Resit was rewarded with an appointment as governor of
Ankara in recognition of his services. Yet, he was ultimately removed
from this post and subjected to a criminal investigation for the
misappropriation of the confiscated Armenian property and possessions.
It seems that Resit attempted to purchase a seaside mansion in
Istanbul with the Armenian jewelry he had confiscated, but when Talat
caught word of this he had him removed from his position. The
journalist Suleyman Nazif summed up the situation succinctly: `The
same Resit that Talat Pasha had esteemed as a murderer¦he removed from
office for being a thief.'8 As Prime Ministerial Advisor Hamdi Kilic
said, `There is something known as `state tradition' in this country;
it still exists. It's enough to read a little history to understand
this.' History shows that while the Armenian Genocide was taking
place, the state praised Resit and others for murdering Christians,
but condemned him for theft.

Returning to the comparison between Istanbul Governor Muammer Guler
and Diyarabakir Governor Mehmed Resit, we find a similar lack of
accountability. Like Resit, Guler was never called to account for the
murder, but rather was rewarded for his loyal service'first with a
seat as an AKP parliamentarian and later, by being appointed as
Interior Minister. Ironically, he too was subsequently removed from
his post for bribery and corruption. Nor was the situation different
in the case of the police officials involved in Hrant's case. All
received promotions in the wake of the murder, just as in Diyarbakir
in 1915. With history as our guide, we can appreciate why the real
culprits in Hrant Dink's murder have not been found.

Ninety years of state-sponsored denial have so blinded the public that
we cannot conceive of the relationship between the 1915 genocide and
the murder of Hrant Dink. But while the Turkish government has pushed
us to forget the events of 1915, state officials have not forgotten.
Turks grow uneasy at the mention of `genocide,' and calls for
`genocide recognition' cause us to flee in terror before some unknown
retribution. We resist using Hrant's death as an opportunity to face
up to history, to see the connection between that history and the
killing of an Armenian newspaper editor. We are made to forget Hrant
although he is the key'the key to the 40th chamber in the Arabian
Nights fable, the one that others do not want opened, the key that is
given to the heroes of those tales. We have a treasure chamber in our
old houses where all of our secrets are kept. And Hrant is the key to
that room. If the Hrant Dink murder case is ever solved, the secrets
behind the establishment of the Turkish Republic will be revealed.
But, sadly, in the present government, there is neither the courage
nor the will to furnish the key, because the government is heir to
these `state traditions,' and the `keepers of its secrets.'



Hrant and the diaspora

I predict that as 2015 approaches, Turkey will attempt to create an
atmosphere of `reconciliation.' Appearing ready to resolve the
Armenian issue, Turkey will portray Armenians in the diaspora as
uncompromising `sectarians.' For this purpose, the Turkish state will
undertake a search for so-called `Good Armenians''and it will find
them! It will use these puppets as a counter-weight to the
`intransigent,' `belligerent,' and `uncompromising' Armenians in the
diaspora. They will seek to pit their `Good' Armenians against the
`Bad' Armenians of the diaspora. And they will use Hrant for this
purpose, too. They will find the criticisms Hrant leveled at the
Armenian Diaspora and use them without hesitation. Hrant's own words
will be exploited as a part of a new wave of hostility toward the
Armenian Diaspora.

Do not be duped by this cynical scenario! Hrant criticized certain
circles within the Armenian Diaspora, and some Diasporan Armenians
criticized him. But he did so because he recognized that some diaspora
groups could not see that the final struggle for the recognition of
the Armenian Genocide would ultimately be fought and won within Turkey
itself, in Anatolia. When we spoke by telephone, he frequently urged
me to `tell those friends of yours that they should come and be part
of the struggle here. The genocide took place on these lands, and its
recognition will also occur here.'

Diasporan Armenians don't readily appreciate that the struggle for
recognition of the genocide is linked to the struggle for democracy in
Turkey. At the same time, some Turks fail to grasp that the diaspora's
struggle to attain recognition is part of the Turkish struggle for
democracy. The majority of those in the diaspora are uninterested in
the Turkish struggle to achieve democracy and human rights; and many
struggling for democracy within Turkey are hostile toward the Armenian
Diaspora's insistence on genocide recognition.

These tensions derive from the conflation of complementary goals.
Armenians seeking recognition of the Armenian Genocide seek justice.
Turks striving for democracy and human rights strive for freedom. The
relationship between these goals is complex because they address
separate problems. The attainment of one does not automatically bring
about the righting of past injustices. The United States, for example,
is a free and democratic country, yet its Native American population
continues to pursue justice. And the search for justice by the
indigenous peoples of Australia and Canada also continues. Thus, we
need to both see and understand this one thing: In Turkey today it is
essential that we not juxtapose freedom and justice; we must instead
create a shared language and intellectual foundation in our search for
both. We do not have to sacrifice one in our search for the other.

Hrant sought to construct a shared language for his struggle and that
of the diaspora. He dreamed of staging a large diaspora conference for
this purpose. Hrant's murder demonstrated the absolute necessity for
this `shared language,' as well as the error of attempting to conceive
of the struggle for freedom in Turkey at the expense of recognition
and acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide. It has shown us that
this recognition must be a shared demand of people in both the
diaspora and in Turkey. The struggles for freedom and justice complete
one another and must not be seen as either contradicting or opposing.
If we understand what Hrant was trying to do, we must bring together
these two struggles as one: the diaspora's demand for recognition of
the Armenian Genocide with the struggle in Turkey for human rights and
democracy. Those wishing for a democratic Turkey that respects human
rights must merge their struggle with that of the Armenian Diaspora.
They must invite diasporans to Turkey and join their struggle to have
the Armenian Genocide recognized abroad. And they must remember: The
Armenian Diaspora is not their enemy but their friend, a valuable
colleague who, due to the decades of denial by the Turkish state, has
unfortunately grown accustomed to looking at things through cynical
and mistrusting eyes.

If Hrant had lived, he would have joined the Armenian Diaspora. This
is not idle speculation; I know of that which I speak. Hrant was never
ignorant of 1915 the way many of us were. Every day of his life, he
experienced the connection between the genocide and what he had to
face; he felt it in his very bones. When his sentence was approved, he
was serious about wanting to leave Turkey and walking, with his entire
family, from his hometown of Malatya, on the path of deportation taken
by his ancestors, all the way to the Der-Zor desert in northeastern
Syria. `Just like my forefathers, they don't want me to remain here,'
he would say. `And if so, then there's no point in my doing so. I'll
travel the path that they took.' In other words, Hrant saw the
Armenian Diaspora as one of his options. With him, we must understand
that some categories are meaningless and incorrect, like the
categorization of a monolithic Armenian Diaspora, single-mindedly
fixed on revenge and of the overarching conception of the `evil Turk.'
These need to be discarded into the dustbin of history.



Hrant and the word `genocide'

When speaking with Turks, Hrant was polite and gracious enough to
avoid the word `genocide.' `I know what was done to my people,' he
would say, `but if my use of the word `genocide' will be used against
me as an excuse not to listen to the things I have to say, then I
won't use it.' Despite his extreme sensitivity and gentility in the
matter, the authorities wanted to punish him anyway, claiming that he
had used it'once! Before he was murdered, Hrant told me that he wanted
to turn his trial for using the word `genocide' into an historical
showcase. `I will state that `Yes, 1915 was a genocide,' and I will
then turn the trial into a history course.' But they didn't give him
the chance.

Hrant Dink was murdered because he wanted to deconstruct Turkey's
founding myths. Those who planned the murder'the real culprits'have
received promotions and praise for doing so. The sensitivity the
government expressed over the confiscation of Armenian property was
never shown toward the lives of Armenians. On the contrary, they
oversaw the annihilation of a people. And the situation today is not
so different! 1.5 million-plus-1. Hrant is the `plus-1.' Failing to
recognize this, we cannot understand the crime or hope to solve it. As
we approach the year 2015, the 100-year anniversary of the Armenian
deportations and genocide, we won't be able to confront this crime
without first admitting to ourselves that, `Yes, 1915 was a genocide
and it must be acknowledged as such.' And that `Hrant was murdered
because he reminded us of the million-plus Hrants of 1915.'

Let Hrant Dink be a symbol for us. Let him be our Martin Luther King.
Even as others in the past have gathered closely around Talat Pasha
and his ilk, and even as they today gather around Erdogan and his, let
us hold fast to Hrant. Let Hrant and the `1.5 million-plus-1' be our
point of divergence between our republic and their republic. This is
the only way that we can claim our Islamic selves, our Turkishness
and/or our Kurdishness from the hands of murders 'those of yesterday
and of today.



Notes

[1]) The full text of the telegram reads: `Reshid Bey, the Governor of
Diyarbakir, is raging among the Christians of his province like a
champion bloodhound; he recently had a gendarmerie [force] specially
dispatched from Diyarbakir collect 700 Christians (mostly Armenians)
in Mardin¦in one night and allowed them to be slaughtered like sheep.
Reshid Bey is continuing his murderous work against innocent persons,
with the district governor [of Mardin] having assured me that the
number of his victims has exceeded 2,000.' (DE/PA-AA/BoKon/169, From
the Vice-Consul in Mosul (Holstein) to the Embassy in Constantinople,
Mosul, July 10, 1915; URL:
http://www.armenocid...15-07-10-DE-011).

2) Here is the full text of the telegram: `Since the disciplinary and
political measures adopted vis-aÌ-vis the Armenians do not in any way
apply to the other Christians, an immediate end should be put to such
events, which will have an extremely negative effect on public opinion
and which randomly threaten the lives of Christians in particular;
please provide an accurate report of the present situation.' Thus the
policies deliberately enacted against the Armenians were explicitly to
exclude other Christian groups. BOA/DH.ŞFR, no. 54/406, coded
telegram from Interior Minister Talat to the province of Diyarbakir,
dated July 12, 1915.

3) Here is the full text of the telegram: `Despite the firm and
explicit instructions within the province,' he wrote, `one hears that
operations have been undertaken against the Armenians and all other
Christian [groups] without exception, and that this situation, which
was repeatedly a cause for complaint, is now spreading to the
surrounding provinces. The continuation of this situation¦which will
leave the government in a difficult position in the future, is
entirely unacceptable.' BOA/DH.ŞFR, no. 54-A/73, coded telegram from
Interior Minister Talat to the province of Diyarbakir, dated July 22,
1915.

4) Here is the full text of telegram: `Despite firm and explicit
instructions, certain armed gangs within the province have continued
persecuting and killing Christians' and that, `as it was previously
announced, the continuation of this situation is absolutely
unacceptable¦ It must not be forgotten that as a responsible
representative of the present government, you are obliged to carry out
the orders and instructions that are handed down from here,
unconditionally and in accordance with our interpretation [of their
meaning].' Talat concluded with a clear warning that his governor
would be held responsible `for every action and incident in which
bandits or armed gangs are involved.' BOA/DH.ŞFR, no. 54-A/248, coded
telegram from Interior Minister Talat to the province of Diyarbakir,
dated Aug. 2, 1915.

5) David Gaunt, Massacres, Resistance, Protectors:Muslim-Christian
Relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I (Gorgias Press: New
Jersey, 2006), 170.

6) BOA/DH.EUM.MEM, no. 2042/67/31/1333.N.15, July 28, 1915.

7) Here is the full text of the telegram: `It has been reported by
parliamentary deputies that the money, jewels, and other possessions
belonging to the Armenians who were deported and attacked along the
way have not been lost but rather secured and sent to the capital due
to the measures that you have taken. Please report back on the
quantity [of valuables] and the manner in which they were recorded.'
BOA/DH.ŞFR, no. 56/315, coded telegram from the Interior Ministry to
the province of Diyarbakir, dated Oct. 6, 1915.

8) Hadisat, Feb. 8, 1919.

http://www.armenianw...-assassination/
 



#1025 Yervant1

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Posted 02 August 2014 - 11:36 AM

Dink's Lawyer Says Erdogan Covering Up Case

Thursday, July 31st, 2014
http://asbarez.com/1...vering-up-case/


Activists demonstrate outside of a coutrhouse in Istanbul ahead of
hearings on Hrant Dink's murder. Jan. 7, 2014. (Photo: Hurriyet)


ISTANBUL (Today's Zaman)'Fethiye Çetin, an attorney representing the
family of slain Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, slammed Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an on Thursday for his recent remarks about
the Dink murder case and claimed that the government is trying to
protect those who were involved in the assassination.

According to news portal T24, Çetin criticized ErdoÄ?an for saying that
the Hrant Dink case was merely personal and not a complex plan,
saying: `The prime minister is protecting his staff [government
officials] with those words. For example, [former Interior Minister]
Muammer Güler is still a deputy of the Justice and Development Party
[AK Party]. Furthermore, Engin Dinç is chief of intelligence. We also
have Celalettin Cerrah, ReÅ?at Altay¦ The list can go on. ErdoÄ?an said
those words in order to protect those people and many more.'

Former Trabzon intelligence chief Engin Dinç, who has been accused of
obstructing justice in the Hrant Dink case, was assigned to be the
intelligence chief of the National Police Department. Cerrah is a
former Istanbul police chief and Altay was the chief of police in
Trabzon at the time of the murder.

Presidential candidate and Prime Minister ErdoÄ?an made a statement to
the Vatan daily last week while on his way back from an election rally
in Diyarbakır. `The Hrant Dink case was personal. It is not possible
to compare that with the parallel state [referring to the Hizmet
movement--a civil society organization that ErdoÄ?an has claimed seeks
to overthrow his government]. This parallel state is a security issue.
They [Hizmet movement] intend to take control of government
institutions. It would be a mistake to compare the Dink matter with
the parallel state,' ErdoÄ?an said.

Çetin has claimed that ErdoÄ?an called Hrant Dink's family after the
assassination in 2007 and told them that he was being targeted, too.
`In a phone call to Hrant Dink's family, ErdoÄ?an said that those who
murdered Hrant Dink were after him, too. Now I want to ask ErdoÄ?an a
question. Are those who want to kill him just three youngsters? Is it
that simple? Furthermore, how can a person who is running for
president comment so easily on an ongoing investigation?' Çetin asked.

Claiming that the prime minister used the Dink case as political
material in order to weaken his enemies, Çetin said that ErdoÄ?an has
decided not to manipulate the case further for now. `ErdoÄ?an brought
the opposition to its knees. He either put them in prison or he has
them under great pressure. That is why he is no longer using the Dink
case as political material. He used Dink in order to start the
Ergenekon investigation [an investigation of a criminal network that
started five years ago]. But obviously, he does not need it anymore.
If he needs it in the future; however, I believe he could use it
again.' Çetin added.

Dink was shot and killed by an ultra-nationalist teenager in broad
daylight seven years ago. The hitman, Ogün Samast, and 18 others were
brought to trial. During the process, the lawyers for the Dink family
and the co-plaintiffs in the case presented evidence indicating that
Samast did not act alone. Another suspect, Yasin Hayal, was given life
in prison for inciting Samast to murder. However, Erhan Tuncel, who
worked as an informant for the Trabzon Police Department, was found
not guilty of the murder.

Rober KoptaÅ?, editor-in-chief of the bilingual Armenian weekly Agos,
where Hrant Dink was editor-in-chief before his murder, also made a
statement to the T24 news portal on Thursday, saying: `It seems like
the prime minister is not afraid of anything or anyone on his way to
Çankaya [presidential palace] from KasımpaÅ?a [the Ä°stanbul district
where ErdoÄ?an grew up], but look how he has ended up. The Hrant Dink
assassination is an obvious source of fear for him. In order to cover
up the case, ErdoÄ?an is trying to leave the Hizmet movement holding
the bag. This is a perfect example of Erdogan's U-turn,' KoptaÅ? said
in his statement.

Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Deputy Chairman Sezgin
Tanrıkulu also criticized ErdoÄ?an on Wednesday for his recent remarks
on the Dink case, claiming that the government is trying to bury the
case.

In a written statement released on Wednesday, Tanrıkulu accused
ErdoÄ?an of not taking any concrete steps in order to capture the
players behind the scenes in the Dink murder. `Dink's assassination
was not a result of personal enmity. It was nothing but an organized
crime. Although Prime Minister ErdoÄ?an knows about every single person
involved in this murder, the real players still got away with what
they did. Only the gunman was sentenced to a prison term,' Tanrıkulu
said in his written statement
 



#1026 Yervant1

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Posted 16 September 2014 - 11:05 AM

HE MADE TURKISH INTELLECTUALS THINK OF ARMENIAN CAUSE: HRANT DINK WOULD TURN 60 TODAY

18:31 * 15.09.14

Chief Editor of the Agos monthly, the only Armenian-Turkish periodical
published in Turkey, Hrant Dink would turn 60 today.

In an interview with Tert.am, Chief Editor of the Turkey-based Marmara
daily Rober Hattechyan said that Hrant Dink was able to get the
Armenian Cause put on the Turkish agenda. By speaking of the Armenian
Cause bravely on numerous occasions, he made Turkish intellectuals
start thinking of the Armenian Cause, whereas they had not had their
own stance on the issue before.

"I think that was Hrant Dink's greatest service. And during that
period he made both friends and enemies, who were concerned over his
speeches. That was actually the cause of his tragic fate. Dink used
to make quite interesting statements, and I can frankly say that I did
not agree with all of his conceptions. But sometimes he would prepare
such materials - no one else would ever think of - that I would have
been happy to write further articles about that in my newspaper."

Mr Hattechyan recalls Hrank Dink's statements that had the greatest
impact on him.

"Once he said: 'Yes, we have our eyes set on the Turkish land - not
to capture it, but to lie under it.' That was a rather symbolic word,
and I should say that our wish is not only to lie under, but also
to live a happy life in this land. We want justice, but Dink's word
had a different meaning, and it evoked wide response. And now many
newspapers writing about him have to quote his words because they
had a great impact on public opinion in Turkey."

As to whether any Turkish intellectuals are continuing Hrank Dink's
cause, Mr Hattechyan said that some Armenian young people can continue
Dink's cause in Turkey with zeal.

On the other hand, Tiran Loqmagozyan, who once worked for the Agos,
told Tert.am that he does not see any person in Turkey who could be
a second Hrant Dink.

"The problem is that many people are making use of Hrant's name, even
people espousing fascist ideologies are making use of his thoughts. I
am speaking of both Armenians and Turks. But I think they do not have
even little in common with Hrant," he said.

As regards Hrant Dink's impact on the public opinion in Turkey Mr
Loqmagozyan said that he did not have any serious impact on Turkey's
70-million-strong population. However, he did have serious impact
on certain circles, making them change their opinion on the Armenian
Cause.

"He changed something with his death. That is, things progressed more
rapidly. But if he lived on, he would have been able to get something
changed for a longer period. I would like to note that Hrant Dink
did not speak of Armenians' problems alone. As a humanist, he spoke
of Turks' problems as well. By means of his newspaper he would defend
the rights of the afflicted. He was a straightforward person. He did
not think of what he was saying and where and thus made enemies in
certain circles. On the other hand, he made many friends."

Mr Loqmagozyan noted that many other people spoke of the problems
existing in Turkey as well. However, Hrant Dink was an Armenian,
and his voice was better heard.

"No Armenian had been so outspoken since the Armenian Genocide. He
thought that he could speak out because he was saying the truth. He
thought Turkey was changing, but, unfortunately, we have seen nothing
is changing. He was an Armenian and a citizen of Turkey and he wanted
Turkey to become a democratic country, where both Turks and Armenians
would live a good life. He was always focused on the Armenian Cause
and used to speak of that."

One of Hrant Dink's most important thoughts was:

"This is Genocide, even if, back in 1915, you had transported Armenians
by gold airplanes. You cut the people off its roots."

http://www.tert.am/e...014/09/15/dink/
 



#1027 Yervant1

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Posted 18 January 2015 - 09:17 AM

PRESS RELEASE
AGBU Europe
Email: contact@agbueurope.org
Tel: + 32 2 761 12 17
GSM: + 32 495 77 08 67
Web: http://www.agbueurope.org/

Ana.gallego-mesas@europarl.europa.eu

On January 19, 2007, the journalist Hrant Dink was assassinated in Istanbul.

His assassination was the culmination of a decade-long campaign of
harassment by the country's authorities, by the military and by
extremist groups. But it triggered an unprecedented upswell of
solidarity and pro-democracy activism in Turkey after more than 100
000 attended his funeral.

Today, Dink has become an icon of the movement for civil liberties in
Turkey and in Europe. His memory serves as a beacon for intellectuals,
activists and a wider public to challenge prejudice and intolerant
nationalism. Hrant Dink was an Armenian, in a country where Armenians
have long lived in fear. He was a journalist, in a country where, more
than ever free-thinking journalists are subject to pressures and
persecution. And as an advocate of peace, he was reviled by
nationalists.

After his death, Dink's family and friends established a foundation
that has since continued and broadened his work in Turkey for civil
liberties, for the rights of minorities and for peaceful relations
with neighbours, particularly Armenia.

2015 will mark the 10th anniversary of the start of Turkey's acession
negotiations and the Centenary of the start of the Armenian
Genocide. The commemoration on January 21 will provide an opportunity
to invoke Hrant Dink's intellectual and political legacy, and to take
stock of the situation of the movement for civil rights and tolerance
that his assassination helped to start.
SPEAKERS
Frank Engel, MEP
Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, MEP, Vice-President of the European Parliament
Rakel Dink, President of the Hrant Dink Foundation (Istanbul)
Alexis Govciyan, President of AGBU Europe
Claude Moraes, MEP, Chairman of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs of the European Parliament
Benjamin Abtan, President, European Anti-racism Grassroot Movement
Levent Sensever, Coordinator, DurDe! (Istanbul)

For more information:
Ani Paitjan - contact@agbueurope.eu
Phone number: +32 2 761 12 17



#1028 Yervant1

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Posted 20 January 2015 - 10:42 AM

cropped-armweeklyheader.png

A Wish for Aladdin and the Future of Atonement

By Eric Nazarian on January 19, 2015

The following is the text of the speech given by Eric Nazarian in Ankara, Turkey, on Jan. 17, 2015, for the conference, ‘1915, Hrant and Justice.’ Henry Theriault, chair of the Philosophy Department at Worcester State College, also participated in the conference.

Thank you for being here today and for inviting me. When I was a kid I loved the Aladdin fairy tale. What child doesn’t want a genie in a bottle to grant three wishes? I remember my conversations with the imaginary genie walking home from school. I had a wish list that I would write down in my secret notebook. My wishes would vary from “I wish I could grow wings and fly” to, as I got slightly older, kiss Sophia Loren and sing like Charles Aznavour. Since 2007, my wish to the genie has remained the same around this time of year: I wish all of us today were celebrating Hrant’s Nobel Peace Prize with him and not commemorating the 8th year of his assassination.

Eric-1024x1024.jpg

Eric Nazarian stands in front of posters for the conference, ‘1915, Hrant and Justice,’ in Ankara.

A lot has changed since those childhood days under the spell of Aladdin, Tom Sawyer, and Hovhannes Toumanian. Fairy tales, classic Hollywood movies, poems, and paintings all came to life on the dinner table of my parents’ and grandparents’ home in Los Angeles. My parents were born in Tehran, I was born in Armenia, my brother was born in Hollywood. As we say in Armenian:Vorteghits vortegh—from where to where—did we land? That is the eternal story of the Armenians.

Following in my father’s footsteps, I fell in love with the movies and books of his youth and grew up to become a filmmaker and writer. Black-and-white images were everywhere in our home. Marlon Brando, Stanley Kubrick, Simone Signoret, Albert Camus. These legends became windows into the world away from our working-class apartment, yet at the same time, they seemed so close and relative. They were inspiring, beautiful, and “harazat,” which means familial.

One of my earliest memories is of a wall in my family home with Charlie Chaplin next to a painting of Mount Ararat and Little Ararat. Laughter and majesty were side by side. The other image I remember wasn’t a painting or a film; it was one word in a poem by the magnificent Yeghishe Charents that my relatives would recite. The word was “arevaham.” Literally translated, it means “taste of the sun,” but it’s honestly lost in translation. I will never forget that word because it evoked the taste of sun-dried apricots. That’s what Armenia was to me—a sun-drenched ancient paradise where we came from. Charents taught me that poems, like images, could also make us see and feel things just like in the movies and music. As a child, this word and the images of my father’s favorite artists, including Martiros Saryan, Hakop Hakopian, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, Federico Fellini, and Hovannes Aivazovsky, illuminated our daily lives. Before homework, after dinner, and during coffee and cigarettes, stories of these mythical artists, pictures, and movies on VHS continued to enrich our little apartment in Glendale. Art was the world and music was a universal tie that bound all cultures. These were the lessons I was taught as a child. To love culture, art, knowledge, creativity and to go beyond borders as a global citizen.

Then I learned of the Armenian troubadour and ashugh Sayat Nova, who composed and sang in all the languages of the Caucasus. Kani Vor Janim, Yar Ki Ghurbanim…

The voice, timbre, lament, and deep soul of those songs always evoked goose bumps and a teenage melancholia in my heart that I could not name. There was a warmth in that sadness wrapped inside Sayat Nova and Komitas’s blanket of music, and the images of the magnificent image makers that my father taught me about, among them Henri Cartier Bresson, Ara Guler, and the great photojournalists of the world.

FullSizeRender-300x225.jpg

Black and white photographs from the Armenian Genocide lined the hallways leading to the conference in Ankara. (Photo by Eric Nazarian)

The honeymoon period during my “Arevaham” childhood in America inevitably came to an end in my teenage years when I discovered a different kind of image that was far from the well-composed glamour shots of Elizabeth Taylor, the vibrant oil on canvases of Martiros Saryan, and the sweet Parisian fragments of Cartier-Bresson. The image of my teenage years was a faded and scratched black-and-white photograph of eight beheaded Armenians piled on top of one another. This was when I learned of the Armenian Genocide and what had happened on April 24, 1915. This image opened a Pandora’s Box in my consciousness. Never again would I be able to look at images in the same way.

The photographer of this image was not Ara Guler or Yousuf Karsh or Cartier-Bresson. It was an anonymous person who clicked the shutter and, without realizing it, immortalized one fragment of unimaginable horror that has traveled 100 years, and will travel well into the future long after we are gone.

And with the sighting of this image, a psychological and personal journey began that lasted more than 20 years until this very day of a painful and endless education about the immensity of the Armenian Genocide and its immediate and long-term aftereffects globally. I learned of the name Armin T. Wegner and the images he secretly photographed of the deportations in the provinces he witnessed. Each image told a different fragment of a much bigger story about the people in them, and we have no way of knowing who they were or what eventually happened to them.

From Armin Wegner and the anonymous photographers that remain unknown until today, we have visual documentations of what happened on these lands 100 years ago. The deeper I went into photographic research, the mountain of stories got bigger and I found myself in a labyrinth of countless narratives. Survivors upon survivors. Orphans upon orphans. Horror upon horror. Similar narratives told by people on opposite sides of the earth who had managed to escape the inferno of genocide. I discovered them in books, in the letters and dispatches of American and European missionaries, in the wrinkled eyes of survivors and descendants that spoke volumes with their silence in documentaries. From Adana to Beirut to Los Angeles…vorteghits vortegh.

FullSizeRender-3-1024x768.jpg

Conference goers walk by photographs depicting the horrors of the Armenian Genocide. (Photo by Eric Nazarian)

 

Well into my teenage and university years, my consciousness was very clearly split in half like akarpuz: On the one hand there were the celluloid heroes of my childhood and the glamour of Hollywood’s dream factory where everybody was happy and sexy. On the other hand, the darkness lingered over the ancient paradises of Historic Armenia where one and a half million of my people were annihilated in the hills, valleys, and deserts of the Ottoman Empire.

When the subject of Armenians came up in school, my teachers would tell me nonchalantly, “When I was a child if I didn’t finish my food, my grandmother always reminded me of the Starving Armenians.” Those two words, every time I heard them, erupted a burning feeling of humiliation I tried to keep buried inside. But I couldn’t.

In school, my American teachers didn’t know about Sayat Nova or Komitas or the word “arevaham.” Everything they knew about Armenians was relegated to a pop culture phrase that was seeded in America after World War 1 and well into the 20th century, continuing to this very day. When the subject of Armenians came up in school, my teachers would tell me nonchalantly, “When I was a child if I didn’t finish my food, my grandmother always reminded me of the Starving Armenians.” Those two words, every time I heard them, erupted a burning feeling of humiliation I tried to keep buried inside. But I couldn’t. One time I remember I ran out of class crying. At home, I would stare at the dinner table stuffed with Dadeeg’s delicious dolma and saffron rice and ponder the mountains of bones in the Der Zor desert. Why did the Turks do this to women and children? Who took the photo of the eight Armenian heads? The buried apparitions and visions eventually instilled a need to tell the story of my people and hopefully find catharsis through cinema.

And here we are in 2015, 100 years after the start of the genocide. Back then the Armenians were atop Musa Dagh fighting for their lives. And just a few months ago, the Yezidis were forced up Mount Sinjar fighting to survive. A lot has changed and a lot has stayed the same, unfortunately. In this quagmire that the Middle East has become in the past few years, lately I wonder a lot: What is my role as a storyteller? Why make images of suffering? Do stories and images even matter when tens of thousands of people are being uprooted, exiled, and deported just like the Armenians in 1915? What is the significance of images and stories during this very critical year that marks the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide? What images will come tomorrow that can hopefully heal and help us to face our pain and anger of being forgotten?

As an Armenian, we tell our stories and make images not to be forgotten. We build monuments worldwide to commemorate and immortalize through stone and mortar the martyrs for the nameless travelers of tomorrow’s generation. We film stories, put ink to paper, and digitize faded black-and-white photographs by Armin Wegner hoping that the preservation and knowledge of the genocide’s past atrocities can lead to the prevention of future ones. We also seek justice for a monumental crime against humanity that Hitler used as an example on the eve of invading Poland in 1939. This very same crime against humanity was an impetus for a young lawyer named Raphael Lemkin to coin the word “genocide.”

Empires and kingdoms draw lines on the earth that continue to shift based on impermanent power structures, but the truth remains rooted and untouchable, regardless of time, ravage, and injustice. The themes of justice and healing and the threat of erasure have evolved into themes central to the Armenian psyche worldwide since the genocide. It informs our art, music, images, poems, and daily yearnings to find wholesomeness within the broken root of our homeland that has been restricted to us. One century or several, the stones in Akhtamar, Palu, Soradir, Sassoon, Bitlis, Kars, Moush, and Diyarbakir continue to tell our stories and remain standing as a testament that the past will never fade and the truth is to be found within that past.

Today, I landed in Ankara by way of Los Angeles and Bolis. I first came to Turkey in 2010 when I was invited to make a film about the Armenians of Istanbul for an omnibus called Unutma Beni Istanbul (Do Not Forget Me Istanbul). The title of my film is “Bolis,” the Armenian word for Istanbul derived from the Greek name “Konstantinopolis.” Again, as a storyteller I was drawn to themes of memory and not being forgotten. I wanted to make the film a love letter to Old Bolis, Eski Bolis, as seen through the eyes of an ambivalent Diaspora Armenian oud master returning to Kadikoy with only a photo of his grandfather’s oud shop on a street called Tellalzade.

Just before docking in Istanbul, I experienced a silent panic attack in the plane above the skies of the Bosphorus. My mind suddenly became raided by images of Komitas, Daniel Varoujan, Siamanto, and Krikor Zohrab being arrested in the dark April night and driven to the interior on trains. I thought of Zabel Yesayan fleeing in the night. I thought of my American teachers uttering the words “Starving Armenians.” I thought of the ocean of bones in Der Zor…What the hell was I doing returning to the epicenter of the genocide?

Just before docking in Istanbul, I experienced a silent panic attack in the plane above the skies of the Bosphorus. My mind suddenly became raided by images of Komitas, Daniel Varoujan, Siamanto, and Krikor Zohrab being arrested in the dark April night and driven to the interior on trains. I thought of Zabel Yesayan fleeing in the night. I thought of my American teachers uttering the words “Starving Armenians.” I thought of the ocean of bones in Der Zor…What the hell was I doing returning to the epicenter of the genocide?

Hrant_Dink-199x300.jpg

Hrant Dink

The answer, tragically, was simple and current. Hrant Dink. What he stood for and what he fell for became the third awakening in my life. I needed to see the city he loved so much. I needed to breathe in the air of Istanbul, despite my silent panic upon seeing the city for the first time from a bird’s eye view. We landed but the dread hung over me as I roamed the streets of Istanbul with a group of filmmakers who fast became friends—and helped me realize my cinematic mission to make a film about the long-term effects of the genocide on a Diaspora Armenian with an oud and a mission to find his grandfather’s music store in Kadikoy. He searches to find something that no longer exists and ultimately finds something he did not expect: a brief moment of friendship and empathy. Perhaps my film reflected my own journey. I came here to find the echoes of old Bolis. But I was really looking for empathy. I was looking for Hrant.

In the film, Armenak, the lead character, is asked by another character if he likes Istanbul. He replies ambivalently that “the demons of the past will never let me forget what happened here in 1915.” For us Armenians returning to this ancient city, we see the majesty of the surface geography, but everywhere we turn we are haunted first by buried apparitions of faces, places, and histories that have been erased from the collective consciousness and the history books.

This is why it is important, now more than ever, in the wake of Hrant, to continue to tell the stories and live to see the stories told. Through storytelling, we can rectify the lies that have polluted the truth of the ravaged and buried histories of this region’s minorities: Kurds, Greeks, Jews, Assyrians, and Armenians.

And in telling our stories, we nurture the need and hopefully fulfill the first steps of attaining justice. Telling stories is an act of civic rebellion as much as a protest.

Refusing to be silenced, refusing to be dehumanized, refusing to be forgotten, singing louder and clearer and more resolute all the truth that must be told is where I find the courage in men and women in this region and worldwide still suffering from the plagues of genocide, injustice, displacement, exile, and racism.

The broken record player of history has been repeating itself in strange and ugly ways this past year. I hope that through civil society groups, open hearts, and a refusal to dilute or distort the suffering of indigenous minorities, there may be a deeper justice and a new awakening found. With citizens waking up to the nightmare that was our history on these lands 100 years ago, may they combat intolerance and the denial of the Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian Genocides with empathy, open hearts and knowledge that dispels the lies.

If I could convince myself today that the genie of my childhood would come alive again on my shoulder and grant another wish for tomorrow, I would wish for every child in the world to know the story of this beautiful human being named Hrant Dink, and for his message of peace and sincerity to be sowed in our hearts to guide us toward a true path of reconciliation through truth, justice, and empathy. The memories of the Tigris and the Euphrates are very long and the pen will always be mightier than the sword.



#1029 Yervant1

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Posted 20 January 2015 - 10:44 AM

EuroNews, EU
Jan 19 2015


Thousands march for journalist Dink murder anniversary


Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Istanbul to
commemorate the death of journalist Hrant Dink, eight years ago.

The prominent ethnic Armenian editor was gunned down outside his
newspaper office in broad daylight and many feel angry that his murder
, blamed on a conspiracy, remains unsolved.

"There is an unfinished case in which those responsible are unknown.
Actually it is clear who they are but there's cover-up. I am a Turkish
citizen, I'm Turk and Armenian as well. This kind of incident is
hurting us. We feel bad. We want those responsible to be punished
soon," said one protester.

For seven years there was no progress in the case until last year when
the Supreme Court decided to investigate whether he was the victim of
organised crime. According to our correspondent, that's led to the
detention of several police officers.

"Dink's friends are more hopeful this year for justice, since the
police officers who are accused of his death were arrested last week,"
said Bora Bayraktar.


http://www.euronews....er-anniversary/



#1030 Yervant1

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Posted 22 January 2015 - 09:50 AM

luther-dink.png

Martin Luther King Jr. and Hrant Dink: They had a dream

 

By Jonn Bass  the U.S. Ambassador to Turkey

John-Bass-150x150.png

On Jan. 19, the lives and tragic deaths of two men – Martin Luther King Jr. and Hrant Dink – were commemorated and honored in the United States and Turkey. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led the modern civil rights movement in the United States, tirelessly advocating for equal rights and opportunities for African-Americans and all citizens until he was murdered in 1968. From the civil rights movement that began with the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 to later campaigns against poverty and segregated housing, Dr. King’s consistent embrace of peaceful, non-violent protest earned him widespread admiration and respect. Hrant Dink worked as an activist and journalist here in Turkey. Meanwhile, he, too, was a champion not only for the rights of his own immediate community – Armenian citizens of Turkey – and for Turkish-Armenian relations, but also for democracy and human rights for all of Turkey’s citizens.  Like Dr. King, Hrant Dink faced a series of death threats as a result of his work and he, too, was ultimately assassinated in 2007. Despite their differences, as I reflect on the legacies of both men I am also struck by a number of remarkable similarities.

 Both Martin L uther King Jr. and Hrant Dink dedicated their lives to advancing peace, achieving equality, promoting justice, and securing and protecting basic human and civil rights. Both men were kind, compassionate, virtuous; qualities that also enabled them to establish deep and meaningful connections with all aspects of society. Both men rejected violence and hatred, embracing instead peace and love as a way to bridge differences and bring communities together.

Both men possessed clarity of speech – as exemplified by Martin Luther King’s electrifying speeches and by Hrant Dink’s penetrating newspaper editorials – that gave voice to countless others who lacked the courage to speak out against injustice. Both men were true patriots who believed firmly that rectifying injustices would make their countries stronger.

Dr. King may be best remembered for winning the Nobel Peace Prize and for the 1963 March on Washington, when he stood and spoke before the Lincoln Memorial to an assembled crowd of 200,000 people. Decades later, a similar crowd of hundreds of thousands of mourners thronged the streets of Istanbul to pay their respects after Hrant Dink’s brutal assassination. Thousands of people, of all ethnicities of the Turkish Republic, still remember him every year.

Those crowds were inspired by the many remarkable qualities shared by these two men – dedication, compassion, justice – but also by their vision. Martin Luther King Jr. and Hrant Dink both inspired their many admirers with a vision of a future in which people of all races and ethnicities transcend the painful memories and injustices of the past, a future in which they live in peace and share the same basic human rights and privileges.

As we reflect on their memories and their legacies, we should remember that these visions have still not been fully realized. Recent protests in the United States over the deaths of unarmed African-Americans at the hands of the police are a stark reminder that there is still work to do in the United States to make Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream a reality. And, here in Turkey, different ethnic communities continue to advocate for equal rights, as well as for more peaceful and harmonious relations within the Republic of Turkey. When you stop and think about it, both Martin Luther King Jr. and Hrant Dink shared the same “dream” of a future in which all citizens are truly equal. And King’s dream of “a future where people are not judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character,” is altogether in keeping with Hrant Dink’s appeal: “Come, let us first understand each other … Come let us respect each other’s pain … Come, let us first let one another live.” In 2015, we must continue to embrace the legacy and sacrifice of these men, and work towards making their dream a reality.

Jonn Bass is the U.S. Ambassador to Turkey.

January/21/2015

 www.hurriyetdailynews.com


Edited by Yervant1, 22 January 2015 - 09:50 AM.


#1031 Yervant1

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Posted 22 January 2015 - 09:59 AM

Zoyan_logo1d120cb1a01dcf65319.png   
 

 
ZORYAN INSTITUTE
  Response to the Statement by Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on the Commemoration of Hrant Dink  
January 21, 2015
 
Your Excellency Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu:
 
Indeed “It has now been eight years since Hrant Dink was taken from us,” suddenly and cruelly, from his family and friends. Your wishes for our patience seem insincere, since your government has been unable or unwilling to bring all those responsible for his murder to justice after all this time.
 
I am one of those Anatolians by heritage and also a Canadian citizen, who held Hrant Dink very dear. My roots, our roots, are still there in our ancestral land, Anatolia, as Hrant always talked and wrote. That is why it is so troubling to see the dichotomy you present between Hrant’s Armenian heritage and his loyalty to Turkey. His loyalty to the homeland of his forefathers, and his love for all the people of Anatolia—Turks, Kurds, Alevis, Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, Jews, and others—was an integral part of his identity. There was no need for him to compromise, as there was no separation of his Armenian heritage from his loyalty to the country and people. Yet, you make the prejudicial assumption that a compromise should have been expected between Hrant’s Armenian heritage and Turkish loyalty. You would never make or accept such an assumption about an ethnic Turk. Please remember, it was his land as much as it is yours. This is what Hrant was trying to explain. Alas, they, the real killers, did not accept his message. That is why they killed him.
 
It is jarring to see the anniversary of Hrant’s murder used as an opportunity to obfuscate the events of 1915. They were not as you state, simply “the inhumane consequences of the relocation policies essentially enforced under wartime circumstances, including that of 1915,” but rather, the killing, planned and executed by the state apparatus, of about 1.5 million Armenian citizens with the clear intent to exterminate the entire race and even the memory of the existence of the Armenians.
 
I also yearn for “friendship and peace” between our two peoples and wish very much “to open new path into hearts and minds.” But, how can we achieve that? How can you expect patience after 8 years, without bringing to justice those who were the real murderers of Dink, or those who took turns to get their photos taken in front of the Turkish flag with Ogün Samast?
 
How do you show empathy for Armenians when, on the day you commemorate Hrant’s death, 19 January 2015, the Turkish court lifts a travel ban imposed on Doğu Perinçek, so that he can attend a hearing at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) related to his denial of the Armenian Genocide, scheduled to take place on Jan. 28? How can you talk about “Fostering a sense of mutual trust and cooperation,” when the Turkish Government actively defends Perinçek’s denial of the Armenian Genocide at the ECtHR, a man convicted in Turkey of being a member of Ergenekon, described by the Turkish court as an armed terrorist organization bent on overthrowing your own government?
 
This is a man who, following Hrant’s assassination, wrote a letter to the Armenian Patriarch Mutafyan in Istanbul and distributed in mosques, condemning the public sympathy for Armenians displayed at Hrant’s funeral as “a rally of war against Turkey.”
[1] The Ergenekon evidence included a May 2007 letter from Perinçek addressed to Armenian schools in Turkey, urging them “to publicly declare in demonstrations, in their neighbourhoods, workplaces and social activities that allegations of genocide or other wrongdoings are lies,” warning that otherwise Armenians would soon be “counting the coffins to see how many real Turks there are in this country.”[2]
 
In the Ergenekon judgment, the Istanbul court also found “similarities between the murder of … Hrant Dink and [other Christian minorities] which took place in different places of Turkey,”
[3] supporting the prosecution’s allegation that these were “not separate individual incidents but killings done in accordance with a plan by the Ergenekon Terror Organisation with the aim of accomplishing a common goal.”[4]
 
Given the Istanbul court’s finding concerning Perinçek’s “leadership role” in “psychological war and propaganda,” within both the Talaat Pasha Committee and the Ergenekon Terror Organisation, and incitement to anti-Armenian hatred and violence, including Hrant Dink’s and other murders, it is astonishing that your government has intervened in support of Perinçek in this case.
 
It is my hope that human values, fortified with the knowledge of historical truth, will eventually empower Turkish civil society to demand more effectively that your government embrace the facts of history. It is worth recalling here the recent op-ed by Cengiz Aktar, titled “Entering 2015,” in which he wrote the following:
 
…The Armenian genocide is the Great Catastrophe of Anatolia, and the mother of all taboos in this land. Its curse will continue to haunt us as long as we fail to talk about, recognize, understand and reckon with it. Its centennial anniversary actually offers us a historic opportunity to dispense with our habits, understand the Other and start with the collective therapy.
 
When I read words such as these, full of wisdom and truth, it demonstrates the growing understanding of Turkish civil society of the fundamental issue, which your government continues to deny. Civil society’s movement in this regard is already evident in that the Human Rights Association of Turkey has made a strong argument for the racism inherent in the Armenian case. They wrote, “…we are the most immediate, direct witnesses of how the denial of the genocide against Armenians and other Christian ethnic groups of Asia Minor has right from the start generated an anti-democratic system, allowing racist hatred, hate crimes, and violation of freedom of expression and human rights in general…This has paved the way for Armenians in Turkey to be treated as a ‘fifth column’ throughout the Republican history, to be discriminated against, to be destined to lead their lives in constant fear as their lives were threatened during various nationalist upheavals and pogroms that took place during the Republican period.”
 
Moreover, two Turkish human rights organizations have partnered with the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (A Division of the Zoryan Institute) to jointly submit a brief to the European Court of Human Rights in the Perinçek case – a matter of genocide denial – documenting his discriminatory and racist activities and statements against Armenians in Turkey and Switzerland. Such instances of co-operation do strengthen contacts between our two societies and take us on a genuine course “towards a horizon of friendship and peace.”
 
While your commitment “to press ahead with resolve to give due recognition to the Armenian cultural heritage in Turkey and those Armenian personalities who made inestimable contribution to Ottoman/Turkish culture” would be a valuable confidence-building gesture, it would lose its impact if your government continues its official policy of denial of the Armenian Genocide.
 
My wish is that you, as the prime minister of the country, would become an agent of change, bringing your government and the country on the side of the true history of 1915.  With that truth acknowledged, it would be possible “to heal the wounds and re-establish friendship.”
 
Respectfully yours,
 
K.M. Greg Sarkissian,
President, Zoryan Institute
 
[1] Vatan, 26 July 2007, “Perincek’s letter to Mutafyan distributed in mosques”, at http://www.gazetevat...-105788-gundem/.
[2] Three-page document stamped, signed and numbered 319783, pages 193, 194 and 195, by the Public Prosecutor included in the Ergenekon Court File; see also Milliyet, 19 May 2007, “Armenian schools receive threats”, at http://www.milliyet....ncel/gun08.html.
[3] Ergenekon Judgment, Book Two (A), Legal Opinions, Item 6.2, Opinion established by Chief Prosecutor of Ankara, at p. 1720/6573.
[4] Zirve Publishing House Massacre Case, Indictment, Section 1, under the heading “Evaluation of Section One”, p. 23/1; see http://haber.sat7tur...name-tam-metin/. See also Zirve Publishing House Massacre Case, Indictment, Section 1, p. 85.
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#1032 Yervant1

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Posted 22 January 2015 - 11:18 AM

Hurriyet, Turkey
Jan 20 2015


Why was Turkey present in Paris but not on Hrant Dink's march?

by Barcin Yinanc

If I had not read Hayko Bagdat's article last week in daily Taraf, I
would not have realized that there are more similarities than meet the
eye between the Charlie Hebdo killings and the murder of
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. Their common point is not
limited to both incidents being attacks on freedom of expression.

In his article, Bagdat recalled the first testimony of Ogun Samast,
who shot Dink in front of his newspaper Agos in January 2007. Samast
told the police that he first went up the stairs to meet Dink, but
could not get in as he was told he had to make an appointment. "I then
called Yasin Hayal [who is charged with being the instigator of the
assassination]. I thought of going back to the newspaper and killing
other Armenians. But Yasin said 'there is no need,'" he said.

In other words, Dink's colleagues at Agos could have faced a similar
tragedy to that of Charlie Hebdo, where 10 journalists and two
policemen were killed on Jan. 7.

As was the case with the Charlie Hebdo tragedy, which was followed by
a march of solidarity by millions, a similar yet unexpected phenomenon
took place in Turkey, as Dink's funeral turned into a march attended
by thousands carrying banners reading "We are all Hrant Dink; we are
all Armenian." Now, each year, the day of his murder is marked by a
march.

Yesterday, on the eighth anniversary of Dink's death, mourners marched
to commemorate him. Unfortunately, the event was not attended by any
officials. Ministers had to attend the cabinet meeting chaired for the
first time by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. However, as was
underlined by Bagdat, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)
has preferred to abstain from the march for the past seven years.

In contrast, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu made the right move and
attended the solidarity march in Paris on Jan. 11. In fact, French
Ambassador to Turkey Laurent Bili told me that Davutoglu proposed to
make the trip to Paris to present his condolences in person, even
before a decision was made to organize a march.

Exactly why a slain Turkish journalist has been deprived of a gesture
of solidarity shown to French journalists is a legitimate question
that the government should answer. We know that part of the answer
lies in the fact that the government has never approached Dink's
assassination with a genuine democratic reflex. Judicial proceedings
have been very problematic, and if there are still some developments
taking place about the case today, this is not done out of justice to
Dink, but rather with the purpose of hitting at Gulenists in the
police.

Dink was actually the victim of a smear campaign. At one stage, a
single sentence from his column on the Armenian identity was pulled
out of context and his critical approach towards the attitude of
diaspora Armenians about their relations with Turkey was completely
distorted. A lot of people were led to mistakenly believe that he was
insulting Turkish identity, which was not the case at all.

Currently, top Turkish officials are unfortunately making similar
efforts at distortion by targeting daily Cumhuriyet. If Davutoglu
opted to go to the Paris march to show solidarity with the victims of
Charlie Hebdo, then it is only natural for Cumhuriyet to print the
latest issue of Charlie Hebdo to show its solidarity with the
satirical magazine. However, while Cumhuriyet decided not to run the
front page of the magazine -which pictured the Prophet Muhammad -it
was not spared harsh criticism from both Erdogan and Davutoglu.

But the fact that two of its writers ran the cover page in their
columns did not deserve Erdogan and Davutoglu's fury. After all, the
picture did not contain anything insulting; in fact, quite to the
contrary. However, both Turkish leaders spoke in such a manner that
many would believe that Cumhuriyet's content was explicitly insulting
the prophet. It is, of course, their right to criticize Cumhuriyet's
decision, but using such heated rhetoric shows we do not have
responsible statesmen. Instead, we have politicians who resort to
polemics to increase their public support.
 



#1033 Yervant1

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Posted 23 January 2015 - 10:26 AM

WHY WILL THE HRANT DINK MURDER NOT BE SOLVED? -

January 22, 2015

By Orhan Kemal Cengiz

Zaman Daily - After Hrant Dink was murdered, gendarmerie and police
officers took turns taking photos with his murderer, Ogun Samast,
at the offices of Samsun's counterterrorism unit. They took these
photos in front of a calendar on which Ataturk's words, "The homeland
cannot be abandoned," appeared on a Turkish flag.

When Samast was taken into BayrampaÅ~_a Prison after he was arrested,
there was a very warm welcome for him. According to eyewitnesses,
gendarmerie officers and prison guards lined up in the hall and they
all applauded Samast.

After Samast was arrested, all of a sudden some young football fans
started to wear white berets to show their sympathy with the murderer,
who was wearing a white beret when he killed Hrant.

On Jan. 19, 2014, when the last commemoration of the Dink murder
took place, some police officers were wearing white berets on the
streets as the procession passed by even though the weather was 18
degrees Celsius.

Do you know who Turkey's first ombudsman was? He was a member of the
chamber of the criminal court that approved Hrant Dink's sentence
of insulting Turkishness, under Article 301 of the Constitution. I
assume you can recall how Hrant was convicted. Some of his words
were cherry-picked from a long series of articles he wrote mainly for
diaspora Armenians. And these carefully tweezed words were represented
as insults to Turkey. It was so obvious that his remarks had nothing
to do with Turks; he was addressing Armenians.

Dink called on Armenians to get rid of their hatred towards Turks,
and so on. Even though legal experts and even some prosecutors pointed
out that his words said nothing to insult Turks, the appeals court
"misunderstood" them.

When Hrant's murderer was caught, he referred to these "misunderstood"
words and said he had punished Hrant for insulting Turkishness.

Do you know who brought this case against Hrant? The complaint was
made by a very famous lawyer who was conducting a psychological
lynching campaign against religious minorities and intellectuals.

Lawyer Kemal Kerincsiz was later on arrested for his connection to
the Ergenekon organization. However, he is free now, like all the
Ergenekon suspects.

Before Hrant was killed, intelligence reports arrived at the Ä°stanbul
Police Department stating that Samast had traveled from Trabzon to
Ä°stanbul with the intention of killing Hrant. None of the officers
acted on this intelligence.

You see, when we talk about Hrant Dink's murder we are talking about
a huge subject. There are hit men, provocateurs, people who aided and
abetted murderers, officers who did nothing to prevent a murder they
knew was coming and so on. At the same time, there is a culture and
atmosphere of hatred towards Armenians that is fed by the denial of
past atrocities.

Today, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) wants us to believe
that they will solve this murder by arresting a few police officers,
and somehow these police officers are said to be associated with the
Gulen movement, with which this government has been in a huge war
for quite some time.

They are the ones who chose this ombudsman, who freed the Ergenekon
suspects and who promoted the former governor of Ä°stanbul to the post
of interior minister. And they are the ones who continue to deny what
happened to Armenians in 1915.

And they want us to believe that they will solve this murder by making
a few apologies!

http://www.horizonwe...s/details/60154
 



#1034 Yervant1

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Posted 23 January 2015 - 10:30 AM

LETTER: HRANT DINK (1954-1915)

By Raffi Bedrosyan on January 21, 2015

Dear Editor,

The title is not a misprint.

Hrant Dink was murdered in 1915.

Hrant Dink was murdered because of 1915... because he brought out
the truth about 1915.

Hrant Dink

The same criminals who planned and implemented 1915 also murdered
Hrant Dink.

The criminals in 1915 did not only murder people like Hrant Dink--the
leaders, the brains and hearts of the Armenian nation--but they
followed up by murdering most of the men.

They kidnapped the victims' wives and daughters. They took them as
wives, maids, or even worse. They branded them with tattoos, and sold
them as slaves in slave markets.

They took the orphaned grandchildren. They placed them in Moslem
homes. They Turkified and Islamized them.

They took the victims' assets--houses, shops, valuable possessions--and
divided them among themselves. The government legalized this plunder
by handing out deeds to the stolen properties.

They did this not only to the leaders, the brains and hearts of the
Armenian nation, but to hundreds, thousands, no, hundreds of thousands
of families, until one and a half million Armenians were wiped out
from their homeland.

This is the truth about 1915; and it is still denied by the Turkish
state. The peoples of Turkey are now beginning to discover the truth,
but--unfortunately--only after Hrant Dink's murder.

As we commemorate the 8th anniversary of the murder of Hrant Dink,
we also commemorate the centennial anniversary of the attempted murder
of the Armenian nation.

The Armenians who survived the Genocide will continue the struggle
until truth and justice prevails.

Sincerely,

Raffi Bedrosyan

http://armenianweekl...dink-1954-1915/
 



#1035 Yervant1

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Posted 23 January 2015 - 10:46 AM

cropped-armweeklyheader.png

Fethiye Cetin Speaks at 8th Hrant Dink Commemoration in Toronto

By Raffi Bedrosyan on January 20, 2015 in Canada,

On Jan. 18, the Toronto-Armenian community gathered to commemorate the 8th anniversary of the assassination of editor and journalist Hrant Dink, who was murdered in Istanbul on Jan. 19, 2007, in front of the “Agos” newspaper offices.

More than 700 people filled the Armenian Community Center to hear keynote speaker Fethiye Cetin, one of the most prominent lawyers in Turkey. Cetin was Hrant Dink’s lawyer while he was alive, and continued to serve as his family’s lawyer after his assassination, relentlessly pursuing and investigating the perpetrators of the still-unsolved murder.

I was the master of ceremonies of the event. The commemoration started with a candlelight vigil and a moment of silence remembering Hrant Dink, as well as the latest victims of intolerance toward free press, the murdered journalists of the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris.

dink.jpg

Hrant Dink

I explained how Hrant Dink became a target of Turkish ultranationalists within the “deep state” that planned his murder, and how officials in the intelligence bureaucracy and state police didn’t move a finger to prevent his murder, even though there was overwhelming evidence related to its preparation and implementation. After a beautiful rendition of Gomidas’s “Andouni” and of “Anin Desnem ou Mernem” (words by Hovhannes Shiraz, music by Majag Toshikyan) by young soprano Lynn Anoush Isnar, accompanied by pianist Lena Beylerian, I introduced Fethiye Cetin.

Cetin was born in Maden, Elazig province, and studied law at Ankara University. She is recognized as being the foremost human rights lawyer in Turkey, specializing in minority rights cases. She defended Hrant Dink against charges brought by the state for “insulting Turkishness,” only because he dared to speak about the Armenian Genocide. In 2004, Cetin wrote a book, titled My Grandmother, revealing her Armenian roots. In it, she explained how her Armenian grandmother was captured as a nine-year-old orphan by a Turkish soldier during the death march of 1915. Although her grandmother was Islamicized—and her name changed from Heranoush to Seher—she kept her Armenian roots secret until she was 70 years old, and opened up to her granddaughter, Fethiye Cetin, asking her to find her long-lost brother. After years of searching, Fethiye did find her Armenian relatives in New Jersey, but only after her grandmother had passed away.

The-Grandchildren.jpg

Cover of ‘The Grandchildren’

My Grandmother has been translated into more than a dozen languages. It immediately became a best-seller in Turkey, and opened the floodgates to hundreds of similar stories about hidden, Islamicized Armenians. As a result, Fethiye Cetin, in collaboration with Ayse Gul Altinay, edited another book, calledThe Grandchildren, a compilation of dozens of stories of hidden Armenians. She also initiated a restoration project for destroyed Armenian fountains in her hometown village of Habap in 2009; several Armenian, Turkish, and Kurdish youth from Turkey, the United States, and France came to Habap to collaborate with local villagers and reconstruct the historic fountains that supplied water to the village.

After Hrant Dink’s assassination, Fethiye Cetin represented his family in the murder trials and investigations, which are still unresolved and continue to this day. In 2013, she presented the failure of the judicial system in finding and sentencing the real perpetrators of the Dink murder, as well as the gross negligence and cover-up of state officials, in a book titled, I Am Ashamed: The Trials of the Hrant Dink Murder Case.
In a moving speech at the Jan. 18 event, Cetin explained the struggle between individuals’ memory and conscience versus state pressure to make people forget past crimes. Below are excerpts from the speech.

***

“My grandmother was about 70 years old when she told me her story, as seen by her as a 9-year-old girl, about the 1915 disaster, the death march, followed by silence, pain, and loneliness. Nearly 60 years had passed after the terror that she experienced, but my grandmother still remembered very clearly her village, her house, all the names of her relatives, including her grandmother, her grandfather, her cousins, even the name of the village official. Despite all the external attempts to make her forget, she remembered everything that she and her family had lived through. It was as if she had kept repeating the story to herself for 60 years, in order not to forget.…

fethiye-cetin-300x201.jpg

Fethiye Cetin (Photo: Hetq.am)

“The official state version of history in Turkey is also subject to a similar policy of permanent amnesia regarding the 1915 events. A typical example is a statement given by Sevket Sureyya Aydemir, the author of Mustafa Kemal’s biography: ‘I believe the fighting and settling of accounts between Turks and Armenians is a page of human history best to be forgotten. Which side was responsible? Who was guilty? I think it is better not to find out answers to these questions and forget these events forever.’…

“But unfortunately, despite all attempts, laws, and pressures to make people forget these events forever, this policy cannot be implemented.…

“On the other hand, the state which forces individuals to forget the past keeps all the information, records, documents about the past under its control, in locked safes and rooms, in places beyond the reach of the public, in order to bring them out and use them as discriminatory policies against the minorities, the ‘sword leftovers,’ the ones defined as ‘others.’ In other words, in one hand the state uses every means to make people forget the past, but on the other hand the state never forgets the past and keeps reminding the people about the differences in the minorities. As a result, the forced amnesia policy becomes converted to a policy of continuous remembering.…

“With the emergence in recent years of many stories about the past, with biographies, books, films, documentaries, panels, and conferences, one can conclude that the monopoly of the state in controlling the past has come to an end.…

“Local memories have started a revival because the great crime was witnessed by all local people. Despite the attempts to wipe out traces of the past, it is impossible for the local memories to be forgotten.…

“Remembering and facing the past is now a must for the Turkish people.…

“Truth and justice are deadly fears of the perpetrator. The perpetrator attempts to hide the truth with all its might, mechanisms, and institutions. This is why memory is the enemy of the government.…

“In my country the most important name of this resisting force is Hrant Dink. Because Hrant Dink, with his stand, kept on reminding them of their past full of crimes, the past which they desperately tried to make people forget. Because Hrant Dink not only kept reminding them of the truth about the past, but everyone that he touched with his words—his readers, his listeners, his followers, people in the street—everyone believed him. They murdered Hrant Dink, because he stood right where the state had drawn the red lines, the taboos that it feared. Hrant Dink became the only visible target for the historical hatred against Armenians, and he stood in the crosshairs of both opposition and government forces.…

“The hatred for Armenians also became quite apparent in all the trials and investigations following the murder, as the perpetrator of the crime—the state—ensured that all the state officials would be exempt from any investigation. During these eight years since the murder, the competing forces in the government still use the murder as war material against each other.…

“I am one of the closest witnesses of Hrant Dink’s murder. I was with him in the court cases throughout the long preparation stage of the murder. My evidence is based on my eyewitness account. I presented and continue presenting to the judiciary and prosecution all I know, I see, I think about this murder. But unfortunately, all my efforts so far have ended up in countless binders or in notes attached to desk calendars. They were not included in formal prosecution inquiries, evidence that I pointed out was not investigated, suspects that I pointed out were not questioned.…

“The history of this country is full of cases where criminals are not tried, even if tried are not punished, where the perpetrators do everything possible to make the society forget the crime. Our history has countless political assassinations and unsolved murders.…

“I acted as Hrant Dink’s lawyer before his murder, and I am his family’s lawyer after the murder. Obviously I do not possess the force and resources of the prosecutor to uncover the real planners and perpetrators of this murder. I don’t have intelligence organizations at my control either, which could provide me with clues and information. I base my case only on what I witness, and what I see in the trial documents.

“Yes, our history is full of shameful events, unaccounted crimes, unsolved murders. We inherited this shame from the past, but we are responsible not to pass it on to future generations. I want to pledge, with you as witness, that I will try to bring to account all the shame and present a clean future to the next generations. My promise is a promise to Hrant, that I will continue to seek truth and justice, to the utmost of my abilities and until the end of my life.”

***

The Toronto commemoration was more proof that Hrant Dink’s legacy lives on and gains more momentum every year, both within Turkey and in all four corners of the world, with demands of truth and justice to prevail for 1.5 million Armenians plus one—for Hrant Dink himself.



#1036 Yervant1

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Posted 26 January 2015 - 11:07 AM

Turkish Intellectuals Who Have Recognized The Armenian Genocide: Tuba Çandar

By MassisPost
Updated: January 23, 2015
By Hambersom Aghbashian


Born in 1948, Tuba Çandar completed her education in the United States
after secondary schooling in Austria High School in Turkey. She
graduated from the International Relations Department of the Ankara
University Faculty of Political Science. She lived in Germany
following March 12 military coup. Returning to Turkey, she became the
editor-in-chief of "Bizim Almanca" magazine under Cumhuriyet daily.
She also worked as an editor at "Gergedan" magazine. At Yeni Yüzyýl
daily, she wrote culture and arts and travel pieces. She had a
"Portraits" column in "Gazete Pazar." Her first book about the life of
Mualla Eyubýðlu Anhegger, "Hitit Güneþi" (Hitite Sun), was in 2003. In
2007, she had "Murat Belge Bir Hayat" (Murat Belge A Life). Her latest
book, "Hrant" came out on the birthday of Hrant Dink on Sept. 15 in
2010.(1).

Hrant Dink was born in Malatya on September 15, 1954. A Turkish
intellectuals of Armenian descent. He was shot on 19 January 2007 on
the sidewalk in front of his Agos newspaper. Tuba Çandar's book
"Hrant" is the story of his unique life. According to
www.goodreads.com , the average rating of her book "Hrant" is rated
4.8 which is almost 5 stars.(2). About Çandar's "Hrant" book,
"istanbulgibbs.blogspot.com" mentioned "The writers are the hundreds
of friends, relatives and coworkers that loved and admired Hrant. They
tell his story from birth to death. I liked Hrant Dink. He seemed like
he had been a man of integrity. He reached out to all sides on the
Armenian issue and became the first to speak out on taboos decades old
in an effort to reconcile Armenians and Turks. And he spoke out for
others as well, for all of Turkey's downtrodden and martyred without
fear or compromise, regardless of race, creed, or political
background. He had been branded a traitor and a hater of Turks by the
media for suggesting Sabiha Gökçen, Atatürk's adopted daughter, had
been an Armenian orphan.(3)

In an interview with civilinet.am, on Jan. 12, 2012, Hrant Dink's
biography writer Tuba Çandar said, "We were all shot. It was not Hrant
only who was shot. We were all shot that day." It took her 3.5 years
to finish the 700 pages biography, which is in Turkish and was very
well in Istanbul, also in Diyarbakir, Malatya, Ankara and Izmir. The
book will be translated by a london based publisher to other
languages.(4)

Tuba Çandar is one of the Turkish intellectuals who is supporting the
Armenian cause, by disclosing and revealing the fact about the
Armenian Genocide. Her 700 pages book about Hrant Dink, originally
wrote in Turkish is a good source for the young Turkish generation who
like to now some of the fact about the Armenian Genocide.



#1037 Yervant1

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Posted 07 February 2015 - 11:52 AM

CLARK U.'S AKCAM RECOGNIZED WITH HRANT DINK SPIRIT OF FREEDOM AND JUSTICE MEDAL

Targeted News Service
February 5, 2015 Thursday 10:11 PM EST

WORCESTER, Mass.

Clark University issued the following news release:

Clark University History Professor Taner Akcam was recently presented
with the Hrant Dink Spirit of Freedom and Justice Medal by the
Organization of Istanbul Armenians on the 8th commemoration of Dink's
assassination. The late Hrant Dink was a prominent Turkish-Armenian
journalist known for his efforts of reconciliation between Turks and
Armenians and his advocacy of human and minority rights in Turkey.

Professor Akcam holds the Robert Aram and Marianne Kaloosdian and
Stephen and Marian Mugar Endowed Chair of Armenian Genocide Studies
at Clark. It is the only chair in the world dedicated to research
and teaching on the subject of the Armenian Genocide. He was the
first Turkish scholar to publicly express his conviction that the
1915 Armenian genocide occurred under the Ottoman Empire.

"It is a great honor for me to receive this award," said Professor
Akcam. "Hrant Dink was the Martin Luther King Jr. of Turkey; he
symbolized freedom of speech and justice. It is critically important
to remember him and to work to keep his spirit alive as we continue
to fight for the recognition of Armenian genocide."

Akcam will add this to his growing list of honors and accolades. In
2006, he was recognized by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for his
outstanding work in human rights and for fighting genocide denial. He
also received the Hrant Dink Freedom Award from the Armenian Bar
Association for being "a champion of historical truth about the
Armenian Genocide" and for his "courageous defense of liberty and
free speech."

This is the second year the Hrant Dink medal has been awarded; last
year's recipient was Khatchig Mouradian, editor of the Armenian Weekly
and professor at Rutgers University and Worcester State University.

Mouradian is a PhD. candidate at Clark, where he is working on his
dissertation on the second phase of the Armenian Genocide. He has
also taught courses at Clark.
 



#1038 Yervant1

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Posted 26 February 2015 - 10:24 AM

KEY FIGURE IN HRANT DINK MURDER DETAINED IN ANKARA

13:50 â~@¢ 26.02.15

A high-ranking Turkish police chief has been detained in Ankara as
part of the investigation into the 2007 murder of Turkish-Armenian
journalist Hrant Dink, the Hurriyet Daily News reports.

Ramazan Akyurek, who was detained in Ankara on Feb. 26, had served as
the head of the police in the Black Sea province of Trabzon between
December 2003 and May 2006. He then served as the head of Police
Intelligence between May 2006 and October 2009. Dink was murdered in
January 2007.

Akyurek was removed from his position right after the Dec. 17, 2013,
corruption and graft operation, along with hundreds of other senior
police officers allegedly linked to U.S.-based Islamic scholar
Fethullah Gulen, the government's ally-turned-nemesis. An Ankara
court had rejected Akyurek's dismissal in January 2014.

The Istanbul Prosecutor's Office initially aborted an ongoing probe
into the alleged negligence of nine public servants, but the 8th Heavy
Penal Court in Istanbul's Bakırköy district cancelled the decision,
reopening the probe on June 6, 2014.

Akyurek was detained after all the criminal files regarding the Dink
murder were combined into a single probe in Istanbul, as instructed
by Istanbul Prosecutor Gökalp Kökcu.

In his testimony in October 2014, Akyurek had placed the blame of
the murder on the Istanbul Police Director, while using the phrases
"I don't remember" and "I don't know" a total of 27 times in response
to the prosecutor's questions.

Under Turkish law, the crime described as "committing a premeditated
murder through an act of negligence" has the penalty of a maximum 20
to 25-year prison sentence.

Previously, three high-ranking police officials, Muhittin Zenit, Ozkan
Mumcu and Ercan Demir, had been arrested by the court in the Dink case.

http://www.tert.am/e...6/hrant/1602005
 



#1039 Yervant1

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Posted 27 May 2015 - 08:56 AM

TURKISH CITY TO NAME PARK AFTER DINK

18:27 * 25.05.15
http://www.tert.am/e...arbeqir/1686481

The municipal authorities of a south-eastern Turkish city have
made a decision to name a park after Hrant Dink, the assassinated
editor-in-chief of the Istanbul-based Armenian weekly Agos.

The park, which will eternalize the Turkish-Armenian journalist,
has a total area of 24,000 sq m. It is situated in the city Kaypanar,
Diyarbekir province, the publication's website reports.

The other park in the city has been named after Hafiz Akdemir, a
Turkish journalist who was killed in an armed attack in Diyarbekir
in 1992.

The park is 2,842m long and has a total area of 120,000 sq m.

Kaypinar is reported to be a leading city in Turkey in terms of the
per capita allotments of green areas.



#1040 Yervant1

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Posted 07 October 2015 - 10:24 AM

ISTANBUL PROSECUTOR ORDERS ARRESTS IN ARMENIAN-TURKISH JOURNALIST HRANT DINK MURDER CASE

Daily Sabah, Turkey
Oct 6 2015

DAILY SABAH WITH ANADOLU AGENCY
ISTANBUL

Prosecutors in Istanbul on Tuesday ordered the arrests of nine people
suspected in the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink.

Dink was one of the founders of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian Agos
newspaper and was killed outside his office in Istanbul on Jan. 19,
2007.

His murder sparked widespread protests and led to speculation about
the involvement of far-right groups and claims of a cover-up.

Ogun Samast, who was aged 17 years at the time of the killing,
was jailed for 23 years in 2011. He claimed he killed Dink for
"insulting Turkishness".

An earlier investigation showed that the prosecutors who worked on
the case ignored serious allegations into the involvement of top
police officers in the murder.

The prosecutors are accused of having ties with the Gulen Movement, a
group whose widespread infiltration of the judiciary and police enabled
them to influence cases or fabricate them for their own interests.

http://www.dailysaba...ink-murder-case






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