Assassination Of Hrant Dink

[Aratta-Kingdom]

ArmoArmen, I think you are a turk. Infact I am half sure about this.

 

 

what a cheap comment

[zurderer]

It is not a comment, I am insulting you.

[Aratta-Kingdom]

It is not a comment, I am insulting you.

 

you are desperately trying to gain the confidence of the armenians.

Edited January 24, 2007 by ArmoArmeN

[zurderer]

and you are desperately not aware of sarcasm.

 

Anyway, enough chit chat. Sent some article. They are interesting.(Somehow)

 

[Aratta-Kingdom]

and you are desperately not aware of sarcasm.

 

L L how mad you must be for not being able to reach your goal. you have failed. tell your boss to repalce you with someone else.

 

 

 

Anyway, enough chit chat. Sent some article. They are interesting.(Somehow)

 

poor creature you desperately want me to stop posting articles, don't you?

 

 

 

 

[zurderer]

poor creature you desperately want me to stop posting articles, don't you?

 

haha. Sorry but I should say this. You are stupid.

 

You made my day. haha. Boo, I am an evil guy, who is trying to seduce you and stop you to sent new articles.

 

Dont sent article!!

[Aratta-Kingdom]

 

 

pass it to your boss that you been suggested to take a job of a clown.

 

 

Edited January 24, 2007 by ArmoArmeN

[vava]

Hey! Quit feeding the troll!

 

 

 

[Aratta-Kingdom]

http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-20/0701242505094618.htm

 

 

Islamic Republic News Agency

January 24, 2007

 

 

 

Belgium-Armenians-Demo

Hundreds of Armenians marched to the Turkish embassy in Brussels Tuesday afternoon to condemn the killing of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink.

 

The demonstrators carried pictures of Dink and shouted slogans condemning his killing Friday in Istanbul.

 

Hayik Malikian, a representative of the Committee on Defence of the Armenian Cause, said 1,000 people of different nationalities took part in the demonstration.

 

The EU has condemned the killing of Dink. He was buried in Istanbul Tuesday.

 

[Hellektor]

spaseq eh, dranq voch azg en, voch tsegh, voch el kext, nuynisk triq el chen, gone triq@ gyuxatsin tanum e "atar" e shinum, dzmer varum taqanum a, hats a txum, el chgitem inch en anum.......

dranq vochinch en, vochnchutyun!

:lol2: :lol2:

 

Երևի դրա համար ա որ Մալխասեանը բառարանում խորհուրդ ա տալիս թուրքով սկսւող բառերը գրել "թուրք" և ոչ "թրք" որ թրիքի հետ չշփոթւի:

 

թուրքաճաշակ, թուրքավարի, թուրքառ, թուրքաբարոյ, թուրքավայել ոչ թրքաճաշակ, թրքավարի, թրքառ, թրքաբարոյ, թրքավայել և այլն:

 

[Aratta-Kingdom]

http://www.liberal.ca/news_e.aspx?type=news&id=12186

 

 

Statement by the Hon. Irwin Cotler, MP (Mount Royal), Opposition Critic for Human Rights

 

January 22, 2007

 

 

I would like to express my shock and deep sadness at the tragic assassination of journalist Hrant Dink. This action was an assault on democracy and freedom of expression - the ultimate silencer.

 

As editor of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian Agos newspaper, Mr. Dink was one of Turkey's most prominent Armenian voices and someone who sought dialogue and reconciliation between Turks and Armenians while remaining faithful to his journalistic credentials.

 

I hope the perpetrators will be brought to justice and that any incitement against those who speak of the genocide of Armenians will come to an end.

 

[Aratta-Kingdom]

United in Grief: Dink honored in Armenia as he is laid to rest in Turkey

 

 

ArmeniaNow reporters

 

“We are all Armenians, we are all Hrant.”

The slogan that began last Friday night in Istanbul was on the lips of Armenians as thousands again paid tribute to the murdered Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink.

 

Dink, an advocate for recognition by Turkey of the Armenian Genocide was slain outside the offices of Agos newspaper, of which he was the founding editor since 1996. (See: “Hrant Dink Murdered . . .”)

 

While Armenians gathered in Yerevan’s Freedom Square with candles and other statements of commemoration, some 25,000 collected outside the Agos newspaper today, the head of the News Department of Agos, Aris Nalci told ArmeniaNow. “We are determined to continue Dink’s cause. The special edition of Agos, to be published soon, will serve as evidence to that.”

 

With stickers – “Dink. 1954-…”, symbolizing his immortality fastened to their chests, and candles in their hands thousands of people in the center of Yerevan joined remotely to the procession in Istanbul. Thousands more followed the live television broadcast of the journalist’s funeral.

 

“Three bullets were not enough, Hrant is not over,” people were exclaiming.

 

“From today on Hrant’s martyred soul will soar to heavens, continuing his struggle, until we reach Turkey’s repentance. He gave us faith and determination to have that day happen,” said writer, publicist Zori Balayan.

 

Young and old, schoolchildren and adults joined their voices in one prayer served in remembrance of Hrant Dink: “For the sake of faith, for the sake of truth and our motherland”.

 

Dink was also being honored in Armenian communities world-wide. Announcements for commemorative services were issued by internet, stretching from Melbourne, Australia to New York City.

 

In the United States capital, the Armenian Assembly of America has announced that Congressman Joseph Crowley, a democrat from New York, will introduce a resolution in Congress later this week condemning Dink’s murder.

 

According to an Assembly release, the resolution “calls on the House to strongly condemn and deplore the tragic murder of Hrant Dink and urge Turkey to continue its investigation and prosecution of those individuals responsible for his murder. Furthermore, the legislation urges Turkey to take appropriate action to protect freedom of speech in Turkey by repealing Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, which criminalizes public discussion on the Armenian Genocide.”

 

Further events honoring Dink are planned in Armenia, including a march to the Genocide Memorial, tomorrow afternoon.

 

 

 

 

[MosJan]

I strongly suggest our guests to be nice !!!

 

The name of the topic is Assassination of Hrant Dink

it will be super nice if everyone can place our egos and differences a side

[Aratta-Kingdom]

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_artic...2/01/2007_79150

 

 

A long road ahead for Turkey

 

 

By Nikos Konstandaras

 

In Turkey, which is trying to gain entry into the European Union, people are still being killed in the battle for basic rights – for the right to determine their own national identity, for the right to disagree with the predominant mentality. On Friday, the journalist and editor Hrant Dink, an ethnic Armenian, was shot dead outside his newspaper’s offices in Istanbul, becoming the latest casualty in this war.

 

In Turkey, people are prosecuted and sometimes murdered because they are of an ethnic group or religion that others do not like. And the law, specifically Article 301 of the penal code, sends people to prison for their ideas when these ideas are taken as “an insult to Turkish identity.” Sometimes this law provides the twisted justification for those who turn convictions into death sentences.

 

In 2005, Dink had been sentenced to six months in prison because he had spoken of the “pure blood that will replace the poisoned blood of the Turks.”

 

He explained that by this he meant that the Armenians would find the strength to overcome the Turks’ absolute hatred of them. He had asked, also, “Why do they want me to shout out that I am a Turk, when I am not? I am an Armenian.”

 

This stance is sacrilege to nationalists, in a country where Kemal Ataturk’s declaration “Happy is he who calls himself a Turk” is reproduced even on mountainsides (using whitewashed rocks). Dink’s prosecution and conviction (with a suspended sentence) confirmed in the eyes of those who want such confirmation that he was an enemy of the Turks.

 

Dink was a target of those who are waging war against Turkish society’s progress, of those who are hostile to the Ecumenical Patriarchate and oppose the warming of Greek-Turkish ties, who deny the sins of Turkey’s past and the problems of the present.

 

And though the government quickly condemned Dink’s murder and the prime minister expressed satisfaction that a suspect had quickly been arrested, there is no doubt that Dink had annoyed enough people in the state machinery to jeopardize his life. He had complained recently that though he received countless threats to his life the authorities did nothing to protect him.

 

He was murdered at a time when Turkey is trying to put the prejudices of the past behind it so that it can join the European Union someday. And the truth is that it has made great progress. One need only consider Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of Turkey’s Kurdish rebellion, who is in prison and not in a grave.

 

The reason is that, in order to live up to EU principles, Turkey has stopped carrying out death sentences. (In contrast, the United States and the government that Washington supports in Iraq have not shown similar sensitivity.)

 

But despite all the changes that the government is trying to achieve, and the dilemma that the military leadership faces in trying to look westward while not relinquishing control of civic affairs, Turkish society is deeply wounded and problematic.

 

So much so that it cannot rid itself of the ridiculous Article 301. The authorities prefer to allow Turkey to be an international laughing stock with prosecutions against writers, academics and journalists – allowing a climate of division to continue rather than creating conditions for one of tolerance and progress.

 

Hrant Dink’s murder illustrates just how much is at stake for the people who dare to raise their voices against the forces that would like to see Turkey stuck in the myth of a monolithic nation capable of subjecting all others – within and outside its borders – to its own will. If the gunmen, who have claimed so many lives in the past decades, are a minority, they certainly do not feel as isolated as they should when a great part of the establishment’s strategic thinking is based on Turkish intransigence in the face of demands for greater tolerance for minorities.

 

After his conviction, Dink had told Reuters: “I may pay the price now, but Turkish democracy will benefit. I hope.”

 

Now he has paid the highest price. The bullets that brought him down also wounded Turkey’s hopes for better days. The battle for the country’s future looks like it will be difficult. And though there will always be brave people who want to change things for the better, the outcome still looks uncertain.

 

[Aratta-Kingdom]

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=10903

 

 

 

Turkish Blood

 

 

The American Spectator

By Christopher Orlet

Published 1/22/2007

 

 

 

In his last newspaper column, Hrant Dink wrote that he was now considered an enemy of the state and of the Turkish people. He had but recently completed a six-month suspended sentence for the charge of "insulting Turkish identity," and he now faced two additional charges. More ominously his email's inbox, he said, was crammed with death threats.

 

"My computer's memory is loaded with sentences full of hatred and threats," Dink noted in his last column for Agos, the Armenian language weekly of which he was editor-in-chief. "I do not know how real these threats are, but what's really unbearable is the psychological torture that I'm living in... . For me, 2007 is likly to be a hard year. The trials will continue, new ones will be started. Who knows what other injustice I will be up against." Even so, the editor belived he would survive the year.

 

 

He was wrong. Last Friday at 1 p.m., as Dink was leaving his newspaper office, Ogun Samast, an unemployed 17-year-old Turk, waited outside on the busy Istanbul street. He approached Dink and fired four shots. Three of them hit the editor in the neck and head. The assassin then shouted, "I shot the non-Muslim!" and fled the scene.

 

Samast was a native of the Black Sea port town of Trabzon. It was there that police, acting on a tip from Samast's father, arrested the gunman as he stepped off a bus. Once in custody he proudly confessed to the murder.

 

Police also suspect Samast of last year's murder of an Italian Roman Catholic priest shot and killed in the courtyard of his church in Trabzon. It seems likely that Fr. Andrea Santaro, 60, was killed in connection with the uproar following publication of cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper, cartoons that many Muslims found insulting.

 

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, an ardent supporter of article 301 of the Turkish criminal code that outlaws insulting Turkish institutions or Turkish national identity, is also a shrewd politician who seeks EU membership for Turkey. The prime minister thus condemned Dink's murder. "A bullet has been fired at democracy and freedom of expression," he said in a news conference. "I condemn the traitorous hands behind this disgraceful murder." This must have puzzled the dozens of Turkish writers and intellectuals charged under article 301, like publisher Abdullah Yilmaz who faces jail time for issuing a Turkish edition of Greek writer Mara Meimaridi's novel The Witches of Smyrna. The novel describes parts of the Turkish quarter of Izmir as "dirty." A cynic might say that Mr. Erdogan and his government have no business talking about freedom of expression.

 

 

DINK, AN ETHNIC ARMENIAN, was given a six-month suspended sentence in October 2005 after writing about the Armenian "genocide" of 1915. Last fall he was again charged with "insulting Turkish identity" for using the word "genocide" in an interview with Reuters. After his conviction at a trial that PEN, the international association of writers, described as featuring the controversial courtroom procedure of an "attempted lynching," Dink began to think seriously about emigrating. When he announced that, if the case against him was not dropped, he would leave Turkey, Ankara charged him with attempting to influence the judiciary, a crime punishable by 4 1/2 years in prison.

 

I suspect that Dink's murder will finally force Ankara to reconsider article 301. Similar charges against novelist Orhan Pamuk for remarks he made about the Armenian genocide doubtless contributed to his winning last year's Nobel Prize for Literature. Indeed, the award was seen as a slap in the face to Ankara and Turkish nationalists. (The Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer refused even to congratulate Pamuk.) Similarly Ankara's demonizing of Hrant Dink no doubt stirred up the jihadist in Ogun Samast and is at least partially to blame for the editor's murder.

 

After Dink's 2005 conviction, Ankara said it had no intention of lifting article 301. Perhaps now Ankara, fearful of losing out completely in its EU membership bid, will think twice before it throws journalists and novelists behind bars for telling the unpleasant truth about the Armenian genocide. Perhaps then Hrant Dink's death will not have been in vain.

[Aratta-Kingdom]

MOURNING PROCESSION IN MEMORY OF HRANT DINK HELD ON JANUARY 23 IN

SYUNIK REGIONAL CENTER

 

KAPAN, JANUARY 23, NOYAN TAPAN. On January 23, RPA Syunik regional

youth and Syunyats Artsivner (Syunik Eagles) non-governmental

organizations organized a mourning procession in memory of Agos

newspaper's editor-in-chief Hrant Dink. The procession ended in

the square near Syunik regional center's palace of culture, by

candle-lighting. Representatives of regional and town authorities,

RPA Kapan territorial board members, residents of Kapan and other

populated areas of the region took part in the procession.

 

"The murder of Armenian officer Gurgen Margarian in Budapest was

followed by Hrant Dink's murder and this is a crime against the

Armenian kind. I think such murders will continue until the Turkish

people makes its government admit the fact of the Armenian Genocide,"

Syunyats Artsivner NGO Chairman Khachik Asrian declared.

 

[Aratta-Kingdom]

U.S. NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHURCHES USA CONDEMNS ASSASSINATION OF JOURNALIST HRANT

DINK

 

 

 

 

The National Council of Churches (NCC) is the latest in a score of

organizations issuing statements of condemnation concerning the

assassination of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in Istanbul on Friday,

January 19, 2007.

 

"The NCC calls on the U.S. State Department to use whatever influence

possible to make sure this political assassination is fully investigated

with courage and clarity," said former six-term United States congressman

and current NCC general secretary, the Rev. Bob Edgar, said. "The Turkish

government must show it will defend the rights and the lives of religious

and ethnic minorities."

 

The NCC extended special messages of sorrow and solidarity with Bishop

Vicken Aykazian, legate and ecumenical officer of the Diocese of the

Armenian Church of America (Eastern). Bishop Vicken is the NCC

president-elect and will speak at a vigil Tuesday evening, January 23, 2007,

at the St. Mary Church in Washington, D.C.

 

"The Armenian people around the world are mourning his death," Bishop

Aykazian said. "He died because he had the courage to say there was a

genocide by the Ottoman Turks against the Armenians. But, God willing,

Hrant Dink's death will serve as an organizing call for all people who love

the truth, democracy and human rights to re-double their efforts to

establish a society where goodness, free speech and respect for truth, which

is essential to justice, is established between the Armenian and Turkish

peoples."

 

Bishop Aykazian, a personal friend of Hrant Dink, traveled to Los Angeles

with the assassinated journalist on a recent joint trip.

 

"Hrant said he was not afraid for himself, but he was afraid for his

children," Bishop Aykazian said. "He was a man of immense courage, strong

conviction, deep morals, and unparalleled ethics. He was committed to

responsible journalism in service to the truth."

 

[Aratta-Kingdom]

Cyprus President condemn Dink's assasination

 

Financial Mirror, Cyprus

Jan 22 2007

 

 

 

Cyprus President Tassos Papadopoulos condemned here today the

assassination of Hrank Dink, a Turkish-Armenian editor, who had been

convicted of insulting Turkey's identity.

 

Papadopoulos said this was a "very regretable development" and called

on Ankara to show that it respects dissent.

 

"This is a very regretable development and I believe that everybody

condemns it. Turkey, which has European orientations, first has to

show that it respects dissenting voices and those who have the courage

to speak out for the need to see the country become more European and

for the protection of human rights," the President said, when asked

to comment on Friday's killing in Istanbul (Constantinople).

 

The Union of Cyprus Journalists has also condemned the assassination

of Hrant Dink, a Turkish journalist of Armenian origin, who was shot

dead on Friday in Constantinople outside the premises of the bilingual

Turkish and Armenian weekly "Agos", where he worked as chief - editor.

 

"This is a heinous crime against the fundamental principles and

rights of the freedom of the press and the freedom of expression",

the UCJ says in its press release.

 

The UCJ adds that "it is about time that Turkey proceeds with no

further delay to the abolition of article 301 of its penal code,

which provides for the persecution of persons who freely express

their views under the pretext of insulting Turkishness."

 

Dink advocated freedom of expression, it says.

 

He was convicted last year of insulting Turkishness in Turkey,

charges which he denied.

 

[MosJan]

can anyone find and post the original statement of Hrant Dink - for which he was convicted

[MosJan]

also it would be nice if we can find the original Armenian version

[Arpa]

Dear mods.

Please accept my gratitude for amending the headline of this thread to read a more fitting ” assassination”. The original title “shot dead” made me very uncomfortable as it sounded as if someone was rejoicing at the crime, i.e “we did it, we ‘shot him dead’, and we are glad”,

Thank you.

 

[Dave]

Well that was the title of the first few reports about the murder.

 

I wanted to change it anyway, thanks.

Edited January 24, 2007 by Dave

[Aratta-Kingdom]

can anyone find and post the original statement of Hrant Dink - for which he was convicted

 

I'm not sure if you can find the article online.

 

The title of the article was "Getting to Know Armenia" February 13, 2004 Agos

 

 

[Aratta-Kingdom]

Taner Akcam: The real murderers are among the leading circles of Turkey

 

ArmRadio.am

24.01.2007 15:13

 

"Hrant's death was not accidental. He was chosen as a target for

this period of time. Moreover, Dink became a target, since he was

Armenian," Professor of the Minnesota University, Turkish historian

Taner Akcam said during the memorial service dedicated to Hrant Dink

in San Francisco.

 

The historian declared also that the real murderers are among the

leading circles of the country. Turning to the Turkish Prime Minister's

condemning speech, Akcam said, "Let him not drop crocodile tears. This

was the culmination point of the continuous policy of Turkey.

 

"The press, the government, the military, everyone carries

responsibility for this assassination," the Turkish historian

declared. Taner Akcam told the participants that Dink was recently

warned by city authorities of Istanbul "to restrict his writings,

since there are a lot of mad young people in the streets." "The

detainee is very like the one they described," he said.

 

It's worth mentioning that Taner Akcam was the first Turkish scientist

to write about the Armenian Genocide of 1915.

 

[Aratta-Kingdom]

Jihad Watch,

Jan 21 2007

 

Fitzgerald: The murder of Hrant Dink

 

When awards are handed out, they often go to the wrong people. It is

not the hapless Mohammed El Baradei, nor that apologist-for-Islam

("the mistreatment of women does not come from Islam") Shirin Ebadi,

who deserve that Nobel for Peace, but rather Ayaan Hirsi Ali and

other brave apostates. And the same is true for those prizes awarded

to journalists.

 

Who has given a prize to Flemming Rose? Or to Hrant Dink?

 

Hrant (pronounced "Ervant") Dink was a non-Muslim victim of Muslim

hatred of non-Muslims. He was shot because he was an Armenian citizen

of Turkey, who thought that the government and people of Turkey

should own up to the mass-murder (genocide) of the Armenians. He was

not, and could not be, a true "Turk" according to the definition

supplied by Turkish nationalists.

 

The particular variant on Islam operative in the murder of Hrant Dink

was the Kemalist cult of "the Turk" -- Kemalism, in constraining

Islam, offered a replacement cult, the cult of Ataturk and of The

Turk. But in this case it can be seen to have adopted to a new age

essentially the same attitudes. The violence and aggression of Islam,

the inability to conceive of non-Muslims as fully equal legally and

socially to Muslims, have carried over into the Kemalist substitute

for Islam -- the cult of "the Turk" by which the past civilizations

of Anatolia, its entire history, back to the Hittites, is ascribed to

"the Turks." This is another variant on the Muslim desire to ignore

everything that happened before Islam arrived as merely the time of

"Jahiliyya." That cannot be done in the case of Turkey: too many

impressive remnants of classical antiquity, as well as of Byzantium,

remain and must remain -- if only for the Western tourists. The

solution of the Kemalist-nationalists was to take that pre-Islamic

past and enroll it in a counter-myth: the myth of the Turk to whom

all this somehow belongs, and for which he, the glorious Turk, is

somehow responsible. The educated elite realize that this is absurd,

but as in any country, and especially in such a country as Turkey,

how few must be those members of the educated elite who are immune to

both Islam and to the Myth of the Turk.

 

The re-emergence of Islam has led some Turks, including the one who

waited to kill Hrant Dink, to be possessed by a syncretistic mix. The

non-Turk means the non-Muslim citizen of Turkey -- Armenian, Greek,

or Jew. No offense must be given by these inferior citizens to the

cult of the Turk, or to "the Turkish Nation." There is the same

readiness to be offended, the same division of the universe between

Us and Them (in the case of Islam it is Believer and Infidel, and in

the case of Muslim Turks who have embraced Kemalism it can be, for

the primitive, the true Turk and the non-Turk), the same recourse to

violence.

 

Hrant Dink should be remembered, and that memory honored, and not

only in Sausalito or Watertown, but everywhere. And the reasons for

his killing should be understood, including the reflection of the

persistence of Islamic attitudes in Turks, even those who are

"defending the Turkish nation from slander" rather than "defending

Muhammad from blasphemy." In the minds of Turkish Muslims, these

attitudes are mutually reinforcing.