Assassination Of Hrant Dink

[DominO123]

Such losers they are, they'll sue his son for publishing his statments where he recognize the genocide. They have not changed a bit.

 

TURQUIE: LE FILS DU JOURNALISTE ASSASSINE HRANT DINK MENACE D'EMPRISONNEMENT

 

Agence France Presse

14 juin 2007 jeudi 3:03 PM GMT

 

Un procureur d'Istanbul a requis jeudi de six mois a trois ans de

prison contre le fils du journaliste assassine d'origine armenienne

Hrant Dink pour avoir publie des propos de son père affirmant

l'existence d'un genocide armenien, a rapporte l'agence de presse

Anatolie.

 

Le ministère public a estime que Arat Dink, directeur de la redaction

de l'hebdomadaire bilingue turc-armenien Agos, et Serkis Seropyan, un

autre de ses dirigeants, sont coupables de "denigrement de l'identite

nationale turque".

 

Ils avaient reproduit dans leur journal en juillet 2006 un entretien

accorde par Hrant Dink a une agence de presse dans lequel il declarait

que les massacres d'Armeniens commis entre 1915 et 1917 en Anatolie

constituaient un genocide.

 

"Bien sûr je dis que c'est un genocide. Parce que le resultat identifie

ce que c'est et lui donne un nom. Vous pouvez voir qu'un peuple qui

a vecu sur ces terres pendant 4.000 ans a disparu", avait affirme le

journaliste, alors directeur de la publication d'Agos.

 

Hrant Dink faisait lui-meme partie des prevenus, mais la cour a

constate jeudi son decès et abandonne les poursuites a son encontre.

 

Le journaliste, qui militait pour une reconciliation entre les Turcs

et les Armeniens, a ete abattu devant les locaux d'Agos le 19 janvier

par un jeune homme originaire de Trabzon (nord-est) et proche des

milieux ultranationalistes de cette ville.

 

Le criminel et 18 complices supposes doivent etre juges debut juillet.

 

A l'audience jeudi, Arat Dink s'est eleve contre l'attitude des juges,

qui ont selon lui contribue a designer son père comme une cible en

multipliant les procedures judiciaires a son encontre.

 

"J'estime primitif, absurde et dangereux de considerer comme une

insulte a l'identite turque la reconnaissance d'un evenement historique

comme un genocide", a-t-il declare, cite par Anatolie.

 

Les prises de positions de Hrant Dink lui avaient valu plusieurs

procès et une condamnation a six mois de prison avec sursis au titre

de l'article 301 du code penal, reprimant les atteintes a l'identite

turque, utilise contre de nombreux intellectuels et vivement critique

par l'Union europeenne.

[Dave]

Take action: http://www.pencanada.ca/media/RAN30Mar07-Turkey.pdf

[MosJan]

Hrant Dink awarded posthumously with Armenian President’s prize

18.06.2007 18:55 GMT+04:00 Print version Send to mail In Russian In Armenian

 

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Today Armenian President Robert Kocharian has handed 13 nominal presidential awards for 2006. Agos Armenian-Turkish newspaper editor-in-chief Hrant Dink was awarded posthumously. Paolo and Vittorio Taviani also received the award for their Lark Farm

 

The award was for the first time conferred posthumously. “Hrant Dink’s death is a great loss for our people. We will always remember him and I assure his family that Armenia is their home and we will always be glad to see them,” Mr Kocharian said. When receiving the award, Dink’s widow Rakel Dink said, “The award of the President of Armenia is honorary and sad for our family. I believe Hrant wished he could be among us now. He used to say that Armenia is a big Homeland and Diaspora appears as small islands.”

 

Awards were also handed to a group of young scientists. “Today we have heard unknown names. But I wish these names to become Armenia’s visit card in future,” the RA leader said.

 

The presidential award has been conferred since 2001 with the assistance of Rober Poghossian and Sons Foundation and Hayastan All Armenian Fund, the RA President’s press office reports.

 

[MosJan]

Senator Biden: Article 301 contributed to the toxic political environment that led up to Dink’s murder

19.06.2007 15:19 GMT+04:00 Print version Send to mail In Russian In Armenian

 

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ U.S. Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden welcomed the initiative of 53 Nobel Laureates who called on Armenia and Turkey to cooperation and tolerance. In his statement Senator Biden also supports their call on Ankara to end all forms of discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities and repeal of Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, the Armenian Assembly of America reports. Shortly after the murder of “Agos” bilingual editor-in-chief Hrant Dink, Biden introduced legislation, condemning the assassination of the Turkish-Armenian journalist. The resolution urges Turkey to take appropriate actions to protect freedom of speech by repealing Article 301. It also calls on Turkey to establish full diplomatic, political and economic relations with Armenia. “There is no question that Article 301 contributed to the toxic political environment that led up to Mr. Dink’s assassination in January,” Joseph Biden stated.

 

Turning to the issue of the Armenian Genocide, Biden reminded that an independent legal study was corroborated by the International Association of Genocide Scholars, which determined the events of 1915 constituted genocide and conform to the statutes of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. “The existence of these independent evaluations of the Armenian Genocide and relevant international law should provide an opportunity for both countries to accept the verdict of history and move forward. I hope that the words of these Nobel Laureates will encourage the people of both nations to recognize and ultimately transcend the legacy of the Armenian Genocide. Once this occurs, I have every confidence that the people of Armenia and Turkey will be able to rebuild the ties between their countries and forge a new, enduring peace,” senator Biden stated.

 

[MosJan]

School named after Hrant Dink to open in Paris

21.06.2007 15:41 GMT+04:00 Print version Send to mail In Russian In Armenian

 

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Saturday June 30, bilingual Association School Holy Cross of Varag located in the north of Paris will inaugurate the School named after Hrant Dink in the presence of Mrs Raquel Dink, Ambassador of Armenia to France Edward Nalbandian, representatives of the Armenian community and the French political circles, independent French journalist Jean Eckian told PanARMENIAN.Net.

 

This initiative, for the first time in the world, honors the name of the journalist of Armenian origin who was assassinated outside his newspaper premises in Istanbul January 19, 2007 by young Turkish nationalist Ogun Samast.

 

[Aubépine]

'We are all oxymorons'

 

By Ayda Erbal

 

http://www.hairenik.com/armenianweekly/gin042107_012.htm

 

 

Seeing Hrant’s lifeless body on a very familiar sidewalk in Istanbul prompted nightmares that every member of the Armenian community in Turkey consciously or unconsciously suppresses for the sake of sanity. For, we are the best pretenders in a sea of millions of other pretenders. What unites all of us as Turkish citizens, apart from language, culture, etc. is our pretending. If I may argue, the most revolutionary quote of Mr. Orhan Pamuk regarding the realities of Turkish society is, indeed, not the one that he uttered during his interview with the Swiss magazine Das Bild. As a matter of fact, one of his main protagonists in The Black Book confesses hopelessly: “Nobody can be himself in this country… In the country of the defeated and the sheepish, to exist means to be somebody else.”(1)

 

Despite being razor-sharp, Pamuk’s observation still needs some qualifiers. The truth is the more you are perceived as a threat to the mainstream values of the republic, the more you have to excel in your denial of yourself. It’s indeed fascinating that the only people that have been accused of taqiyah(2) in Turkish society so far are the adherents of Islamist ideology, whereas only a very small portion of Turkish society—its ruling elite, the intellectuals and the entertainment industry connected to this ruling elite—have the luxury of being themselves without being afraid for their lives. Unfortunately, if there is a kingdom of denial in Turkey, it has a couple of capitals, not just Ankara, and one of these capitals of daily denial is in the heartland of its minority communities.

 

Contrary to common belief, however, Armenians are not the only ones who have to practice the art of oblivion on a daily basis. If you are a Turkish Jew still adamant on sending your children to the only Jewish school operating in Istanbul, you have to forget that they will be attending school under heavy security measures. If you are an Armenian, you have to be even more prone to oblivion, so that you can send your children to schools whose demands for more security have been declined by the authorities. Now, besides your daily worries, you have to also think about ways for securing your schools. All this, because you are born as a minority in a country where intellectuals think that things got worse only because now they, too, need security guards. I have not heard of any intellectual terribly disturbed by the fact that, for example, Jewish kids have to go to school under heavy security measures or that synagogues have to operate under even tighter precautions since the 2003 synagogue bombing(3) and the assassination of Yasef Yahya.(4) But none of these made it in the discussion circles or the front pages of mainstream newspapers, let alone the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. Indeed, it could not. We, as members of minority communities, should not talk about the afore-mentioned. And a few intellectuals who can get a spot in the major international newspapers would rather delve shamelessly into the business of PR for themselves and Turkey by framing and reframing Hrant’s assassination.(5)

 

Still, you have to pretend as if everything is all right, if you want to live in a country where technically speaking you have a right to exist peacefully no less than your Turkish Sunni neighbor. Being an Armenian from Turkey not only means that you have to be a con artist for life, but that you also have to carry an extreme amount of patience so that your forcefully inflicted schizophrenia does not become real.

 

One way of coping with our miserable fate is to internalize our condition and start loving that which is not lovable under normal psychological conditions. In this situation, our need for and dependence on a political culture that acts pretty much like a hostage-taker may manifest itself as “love,” and since we also believe that this must be love, we may indeed start thinking like our hostage-taker. This is called Stockholm syndrome(6) and this is what the majority of Armenians from Turkey have to suffer from all their lives. All of us, including the late Hrant Dink, suffer from Stockholm syndrome; and we usually tend to think that if we find a proper emotional language, our plight would be understood by the masses, who will maybe one day develop their own Lima syndrome.(7) That’s the ultimate dream of educated Armenians from Turkey who cannot make it elsewhere other than our homeland proper—the one that Hrant was also unable to leave. Either you chose to stay relevant and become politically involved and risk getting killed because of your involvement, or you choose to be reduced to total irrelevancy in another country—which is of course a subtle way of being killed. Especially if you are an intellectual, journalist, artist or writer, this second version of being killed over and over again during all those years of undoing and redoing yourself in different, strange and sometimes hostile cultures, is the only thing that you share with the other lucky (!) Armenians from around the world. Your ability to survive in partial-death situations connects you to your fellow Armenians, especially if they are from the Middle East.

 

Yet, you slowly become immune until one day, one of you gets assassinated again. Then you start asking yourself, Was he able to explain himself? Will they understand us this time? Were they aware of his and our limitations?

 

As others were glued to their computers and TV screens after the assassination, I struggled with these and many other existentially disturbing questions. Reading the media coverage on Hrant—an editor, among other things, whose newspaper few people took seriously—was a serious challenge, one that even Albert Camus’ characters would have given up earlier.

 

I am not saying people did not love Hrant, but they loved him for the wrong reasons and with very little information about Hrant, the real man, and about Agos, an initially joint Bolsahye effort in which even the Patriarchate was indirectly involved. I unfortunately cannot demonstrate this, but I know for a fact that even the Turkish Intelligence Service read Agos and Hrant more than his so-called friends who inundated the world and the Turkish media with their crocodile tears. I cannot count 10 prominent Turkish intellectuals who were avid Agos readers for the last 6-7 years. Again, I cannot count 10 prominent Turkish intellectuals who have some organic ties with the Armenian community beyond Agos. It’s not because the Armenian community was hostile or closed, it’s because they did not want to ask real questions about the community; it was convenient for them to be taken up by the friendship and peace discourse partially authored by Hrant himself. Most of them atheists—which in the Turkish context translates to theologically illiterate—they could not have a real talk with the Armenian society without despising them deep down, the way they—and not just the military—secretly despise their own Muslims.

 

No wonder Hrant Dink, whose companion, lover and wife Rakel chose to wish farewell with a metaphorical speech highly ornamented with Christian symbolism, had to conceal this part of his identity very well. Maybe they were even surprised to learn after his death that he was occasionally visiting the Protestant minister asking him to pray for him; I do not know many atheist Turkish intellectuals going to an Imam and asking him to pray for them. For those of us who knew Hrant since we were teens, his visit was indeed just normal. Wasn’t he one of the best pupils and friends of a former Istanbul Patriarch? But no, Turkish journalists would rather choose to reduce Hrant, who was a real character, to a type made up of exaggerations and incomplete information, to a type that they came to believe that only they were able to understand and only they were able to love. Even Perihan Magden, who had been tried numerous times because of her unbinding position regarding conscientious objection and whom I respect very much otherwise, could not escape from this fallacy of not being able to understand an Armenian character, and not just any Armenian character but one from Turkey.(8) It seems that these people had not even spent a little time to think about Shakespeare’s King Lear. For most of us, the issue was crystal clear. Just as Albert Camus says, “I love my country too much to be a nationalist,” we—even those of us who criticized him—loved Hrant too much to be a superficial Hrantist. We knew his limitations, we knew what it means to be an orphan always in need of love, because most of us third generation Anatolian Armenians grew up in total or semi-orphaned situations, just like Hrant; we spent enough time to think about denial psychologically and philosophically, not just genocide denial but other more subtle and much more intricate yet still human ways of partial self-denial; we were exposed to the giants of world literature and we knew a thing or two about a real character. Moreover, we understood Rakel’s farewell letter with all its symbols and allegories, not just one freely chosen metaphor over others about a darkness who is able to create murderers out of babies.

 

Only a very small portion of the said newspaper columnists—so little in numbers that one can even remember them by their names—were able to understand what it is to be an Armenian in Turkey, and the reason Hrant, among all other public figures, was chosen as the target: his Armenianness. And not just any Armenianness. In this case, it was an Armenianness that had the courage to challenge the official Turkish historiography, and its semi-official academic and literary variations.

 

The rest were involved in an almost pornographic account of telling anecdotes about Hrant, trying to get a share from the bounty that was an assassinated Hrant. I could not help but remember a sentence from the introduction of Falih Rifki Atay’s Cankaya, an unconventional biography of Ataturk.(9) In it, Atay, albeit with Orientalist undertones says: “There is no such thing as true character in the East. There is either glorification or vilification. Either the man blinds you and you have to glorify him or he despises you and you have to tear him into pieces in mockery. People will tell you anecdotes about the man but few will spend time to understand the man.” Such had indeed been the fate of Hrant. He and his ever-evolving legacy were recycled ruthlessly and emptied of their substance totally.

 

I am, of course, not implying that there should have been nothing written on Hrant(10). But there were instances of high drama which at least some of us Istanbul-Armenians had a hard time believing in. A Turkish novelist, for example, tried to convince her audience in Turkish that she dried up after she heard about the assassination, that she could not longer think straight and write; but the same person was able to write a very rationally calculated piece for the Wall Street Journal the same day, as if going through a checklist of sorts, whose last item after her PR campaign for Turkey was to campaign for her own book. The same person would turn her own NPR segments to a locus of further, shameless PR campaigns full of some romantic and then unsubstantiated ramble about “who indeed the real Turkey was.” She was trying to convince the world audience that the real Turkey is not that who killed Hrant Dink but those 100,000 people who filled the streets of Istanbul (which reminded us one more time that most, if not all, of the intellectuals in Turkey are indeed gatekeepers no matter how post nationalist they think they are). Hrant did not have another choice, yet these people, who are technically the owners of Turkey, could have been more unfeeling in their critique. But no, in all the international coverage they rather chose to behave like a peasant who has a hard time accepting that his yogurt is indeed sour.

 

Among other shocking things most probably written with good intentions, almost 95 percent of the coverage after Hrant’s death could not help but refer to Hrant’s being more patriotic than even themselves. In other words, while on the one hand every one of them was amazed by the fact that an Armenian could love those lands more than they, on the other hand, they, not so discreetly, alluded to the proper ways of behaving for their minorities. As if everybody was trying to prove something to the Turkish right: “See you do not even know who you killed, you killed the greatest patriots of all times. Stupid you Ogun Samast and friends!” Almost all of them sounded as if it was a bigger sin to kill a Turkish Armenian who was able to finally prove his patriotism during his lifetime than a regular Turkish Armenian who did not feel it necessary to do so just to be heard.

 

These were the same people who did not even know how to defend freedom of speech against the likes of Kemal Kerincsiz or the mainstream Turkish center and center right. I do not remember a single soul who had the guts to hypothetically ask: “So what, let’s say he denigrated Turkishness. What’s the big deal?” As if freedom of speech meant freedom of being interpreted correctly. The sad thing is that whoever tried to stand by Hrant did so by pointing at “misinterpreting judges.” The same is true of Elif Shafak who instead of standing by her freedom of expression, generously used her freedom of escapism by saying “I did not say those words, my characters did.” The only person who was able to show true intellectual courage was Taner Akcam, whose case that involved using the term genocide was recently dropped.

 

This narrative on patriotism was blended with an equally disturbing narrative of pitting Hrant against the Diaspora, based on a couple of writings, as if Hrant could have been an independent and unconstrained thinker in a country where Turkish Sunni Muslim intellectuals are afraid of their own shadows and have many trepidations about the subject being discussed, as if there really is a way for a Turkish Armenian to be, in this case, himself. Indeed, the sad thing is that a single week does not go by where there is not a meeting of intellectuals in which the ritual of the day is bashing the Diaspora…

 

Only one Turkish journalist—Yildirim Turker—seemed to be aware of Hrant’s limitations, though he was not inquisitive about them. Indeed nobody, other than the few Bolsahyes who were aware of his limitations as a journalist, activist and as a man de plume would dare to make a fuss about it… The rest would rather choose to not connect the dots, and immerse themselves in a euphoria that will die down as years pass. A euphoria indeed that most of us who grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s and witnessed one too many political assassinations (including the Sivas catastrophe that claimed 37 lives) are totally indifferent to and unimpressed by. For me, the seeds of their future performance are ingrained in their skewed perception of today’s Armenian Diaspora, or rather their inability and unwillingness to grasp what the Armenian Diaspora is all about: a couple of million of stubborn individuals who on average had 7-8 Hrants in their own immediate families. My impression is that just like they want the evil and obsessed Diaspora to bow down to bait and switch policies that they are packaging in fancy words and discourses which did not work and dead elsewhere—i.e., a wishy-washy reconciliation discourse (let’s open the borders and let’s call it off)—they will probably be ready to forget the chain of dark relations that killed Hrant for a brighter Turkish-Armenian future. As if such friendship based on shaky bait and switch grounds could ever happen. Unfortunately, they are the ones who would not mind killing a young child for a brighter future for all of us, a tough dilemma that Ivan Karamazov of the Karamazov Brothers leaves us alone with. They are trying to turn Hrant in a sense to that innocent child. But neither Hrant was an innocent child or angel—as none of us grown ups can indeed be— nor is it OK to expect goodness out of a murder.

 

Until we spend some real effort to understand why Hrant really got killed, my friends, we are all impossibilities, we are all oxymorons…

 

 

Endnotes

 

(1) My translation.

 

(2) Precautionary denial of religious belief in the face of potential persecution. Stressed by Shii Muslims, who have been subject to periodic persecution by the Sunni majority. The concept is based on Quran 3:28 and 16:106 as well as hadith, tafsir literature and juridical commentaries. Oxford Dictionary of Islam. John L. Esposito, ed. Oxford University Press Inc. 2003. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.

 

(3) Public and private security personnel, even before the bombings, were in charge of protecting the synagogues, the Jewish community centers and the only Jewish school of Turkey. After the 2003 bombing their security got tighter.

 

(4) Yasef Yahya was a Jewish dentist in Istanbul who was assassinated in August 2003. The only thing that was missing from his dental office was his address book full of names and addresses of prominent Jews. Indeed a similar address and data confiscation happened right after Hrant’s death and this time from the Sisli Municipality, a municipality heavily populated by Armenians and Jews. Whereas the mainstream media spent only a paragraph or two on the event, the municipality itself pretended as if there was nothing to get alarmed over, and simply stated that the data was scrambled and password protected. As if we are not living in a world where hacking data is the next thing nerdy kids learn after—or sometimes even before—calculus.

 

(5) One exception was Selcan Hacaoglu’s more critical Associated Press coverage.

 

(6) “Psychological response sometimes seen in an abducted hostage, in which the hostage can show signs of having feelings of loyalty to the hostage-taker, regardless of the danger (or at least risk) in which the hostage has been placed. Stockholm syndrome is also sometimes discussed in reference to other situations with similar tensions, such as battered person syndrome, rape cases, child abuse cases, and bride kidnapping. The syndrome is named after the Norrmalmstorg robbery of Kreditbanken at Norrmalmstorg, Stockholm, Sweden, in which the bank robbers held bank employees hostage from August 23 to August 28 in 1973. In this case, the victims became emotionally attached to their victimizers, and even defended their captors after they were freed from their six-day ordeal. The term Stockholm syndrome was coined by the criminologist and psychiatrist Nils Bejerot, who assisted the police during the robbery and referred to the syndrome in a news broadcast.” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome.

 

(7) “Unlike Stockholm syndrome, where hostages develop sympathy for their abductor, Lima syndrome is the result of the abductor/kidnapper sympathizing with his hostages. Occurred in the Japanese Embassy hostage crisis of 1996, when members of a militant movement took hostage hundreds of people attending a party in the official residence of Japan’s ambassador to Peru. Within a few days, they set free most of the hostages, including the most valuable ones.” www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Lima+syndrome.

 

(8) www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haberno=210592, “Ermeni cemaatindekiler seni begenmediler, Patrikhanedekiler seni begenmediler, Diyasporadaki kokozlar seni begenmediler.” (“The ones from the Armenian community [istanbul] did not like you, the ones from the Patriarchate [Armenian] did not like you, the kokoz (slang) of the Diaspora did not like you.”)

 

(9) Falih Rifki Atay was one of Ataturk’s biographers, besides being a journalist and Bolu and Ankara deputy in the second Turkish parliament.

 

(10) Indeed one such journalist, Nuray Mert of Radikal, solemnly chose not to write and instead put a picture of Hrant and herself at a dinner with a brief note saying she was indeed speechless. However, in another piece written on January 30, 2007, she would go back to her own ways of denialism and superficial explanations regarding 1915: Some totally unsubstantial and one dimensional “Usual Suspects” discourse, where the blame is put on the “Imperialists” and almost total amnesty is given to local actors or political conditions. http://www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haberno=211601. (I thank Mr Rifat Bali for pointing out this article.)

[MosJan]

ԴԱՏԻ ԿՏԱՆ

 

*

 

Հրանտ Դինքի ընտանիքը մտադիր է դատի տալ Թուրքիայի Գիրեսունի ժանդարմերիայի տարածաշրջանային հրամանատար, բրիգադի գեներալ Քարադումանին այն բանի համար, որ վերջինս երկու թուրք զինվորի թաղման արարողության ժամանակ «դավաճան» է անվանել Դինքին:

* ԱՐՄԵՆՊՐԵՍ

 

[Yervant1]

ETERNAL FLIGHT: HRANT DINK" FILM TO BE READY BY JULY 10

 

ARMENPRESS

Jun 28 2007

 

YEREVAN, JUNE 28, ARMENPRESS: A film dedicated to the Turkish-Armenian

journalist, chief editor of "Agos" newspaper Hrant Dink "Eternal

Flight: Hrant Dink" will be ready by July 10.

 

Director of the film Hrant Hakobian told Armenpress that at present

film editing works are being carried out. The film was to be ready

by late May but it was postponed as the brother of the chief editor

Yervand Dink promised the film director to provide additional

materials.

 

Thirty-minute long film is being shot in "Hayk" film studio on state

funds. The shootings were particularly made in "Agos" newspaper's

office, at Hrant Dink's home, in his birthplace Malatia.

 

"It is difficult to say to what genre the film belongs but it is like

a close conversation between me and Hrant," the film director said.

 

The idea to shot a film occurred to the director when H. Dink was

alive, in November 2006.

 

The film will be translated into English and Turkish and will be

shown in Turkey as well.

 

[Aratta-Kingdom]

Hrant Dink’s family brought action against Turkish general

 

 

30.06.2007

 

 

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The family of Armenian editor Hrant Dink, assassinated January 19, 2007 in Istanbul, demands to launch legal proceeding against general Dursun Ali Karademir. The motion came after the general recited an equivocal poem during the funeral of a Turkish soldier. The poem was dedicated to the soldier killed January 18 in Diarbekir.

 

In April general Karademir said “the U.S. and EU did not condemn the murder of a soldier but condemned the murder of a traitor.”

 

Dink’s family accuses the general in inciting hatred between the families, Radikal newspaper reports.

 

[MosJan]

Dink murder trial opens in Istanbul

02.07.2007 12:56 GMT+04:00 Print version Send to mail In Russian In Armenian

 

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The trial of 18 people charged in connection with the murder of prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink is to open in the city of Istanbul. Mr Dink, 53, was gunned down outside his newspaper’s office in Istanbul in January. His murder triggered anger and shock across Turkey.

 

Unemployed teenager Ogun Samast is accused of carrying out the shooting. Prosecutors say he has confessed. The trial is closed to the public because Samast is a minor.

 

Mr Dink was well-known for writing articles about the mass killing of Armenians by Turks in 1915 - a very controversial issue in Turkey.

 

He was a hate figure for hard-line nationalists and had received multiple death threats.

 

Seventeen-year-old Samast, from the town of Trabzon, was known to have links to nationalists. He faces a lengthy jail sentence if convicted. Two of the other 17 defendants, Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel, are accused of leading a nationalist group and ordering the murder.

 

But some critics say that the investigation has not gone far enough, alleging links between nationalists and some elements of the security forces, and accusing police of failing to properly investigate reports of a plot to kill Mr Dink.

 

A lawyer for Mr Dink’s family criticized the fact that unnamed security officials were not in the dock. "This despite the established fact that they had links with the suspects, failed in their duty, concealed evidence and even sought to vindicate the murder and the murderer," Fethiye Cetin said.

 

After Mr Dink was killed, video footage emerged showing Samast posing with police and the national flag after his arrest. One newspaper suggesting the teenager was treated like a hero.

 

In a statement, Human Rights Watch said that the trial was a "critical test of the Turkish judiciary’s independence".

 

"The Turkish judiciary must hold accountable any security forces responsible for negligence or collusion in the murder," it said.

 

Mr Dink’s death threw a spotlight on issues of free speech and nationalism in Turkey, the BBC reports.

 

[Yervant1]

SPEECH OF HOSROF DINK

 

AZG Armenian Daily

04/07/2007

 

Your Honor President and the Member of the Court

 

Hrant Dink, who was brutally murdered on January 19, is my brother. I

am here to seek justice and to see that the perpetrators of this

crime against humanity are found out.

 

My older brother Hrant, I and my younger brother Yervant were born

in Malatya and shared the most sacred and fundamental right of the

humankind the right to life as well as our hopes, our pains and

our poverty.

 

Our father Sarkis and our mother Gulvart are divorced when we were

children. The conditions forced us to grow in an orhanage. We had to

begin learning the harsh conditions of living humanly on these land

when we were children, in the orphanage

 

We thought we were born as human beings. In time, against our will we

were given many identities, we were labeled. We no longer belonged

to the humankind, nor to the earth. We became part of a particular

region, a particular people, a particualr family and many more

different identities. Even during our childhood we were aware that

other children were different. We saw and lived discrimination. We

witnessed the crowds with intolerance to diversity.

 

We shared our lives with our wifes: Hrant with his Rakel, me with my

Zabel and Yervant with his Haygan.

 

We grew bigger with our children; we transformed our pains to

happiness, our poverty to wealth and our hopes to eternity. We fought

together to ensure that our children, together with the children of

the world, would not live through the pains and difficulties that we

had to experience.

 

We did not forget to laugh with the people around us and share the

joy with the world. On January 19, a bullet hit our happiness and our

family, which we built with our efforts, tears, joy and hopes. On

19 January once again we understood that we were neither human nor

an earthling

 

My brother knew that our ancestors were born in these lands and

harvested this land, turned grape into pectin, grape juice to wine,

wheat to bread, earth to jug, cupper to ewer, iron to pullow and

that they dearly loved this land, they caressed it with their hands

and smelled with their noses. I know he thought that all the people

who lived and currently live share the same pain, and that all their

happiness, sadness and hopes are linked to each other.

 

After the murder of my brother people expected that we would be afraid

and leave this country. And for some thinking was not enough they

did everything they could to make us escape. Some of the threats

we received are in the case files. But they could not understand,

they did not perceive something. Like all the people that were born

on these soils, we were born and grew up here; we blended our sorrow

and hopes with the people of this land. In short we were born here

and we will die here. Hrant, with all the opprtunity he had, did not

leave this country; he did not abondon his friends. This is what

suits us. This trial, which will begin today, will be a milestone

for Turkey if the truth comes out.

 

In fact, this trial is one that the rule of law vs.

 

the people who implement justice for their own interests and

incomes. In other worlds it will be between the people who believe

in the rule of law and the people who say "we are the law, we are

the state".

 

We do not have anthing to win or lose in this trial.

 

Neither the beloved we lost will come back, nor our lives will get

beter. In essence, you are the addressees of this case.

 

On one hand there is the judiciary; on the other an organization that

see themselves superior to the state, have no respect to law and

prove this through their acts and executions. In their dark world,

they can decide who shall live or die; they are the judge and the

executioner. Under these circumstances we, you and even little

children, none of us is safe.

 

The main question waiting to be answered is: What will the justice

do against this power that can take away the right to life of an

Armenian citizen; that can kill a judge in his own seat?

 

There has been similer structures in every country that get its

support from within state institutions.

 

But these countries were able to bring their country to lightness from

the darkness by destroying these structures through their belief to

justice and with brave judges. This trial is a chance to do the same.

 

We believe that there exist such brave judges in our country, too.

 

The people will give all the support they will need.

 

And a last word?

 

Every citizen of Turkey's right to life is sacred and under state

protection.

 

And it will be Turkey that will win or lose at the end of this trial.

 

Hosrof Dink

 

 

ADDRESS OF RAKEL DINK TO THE COURT

 

AZG Armenian Daily

04/07/2007

 

Your Honour the President of the Court and the Honorable Judges,

 

My story beging with the Armenian Varto tribe which is one of the

1915 left overs. I was born in 1959 into the Armenian Varto tribe

which was in Mardin borders; in Sirnak district now. Today the town is

called Yolagzi. The name Varto omes from my grand grandfather's name,

Vartan. The remaining of the tribe migrated to Ýstanbul in 1978. Until

migration, their life in the village, and then in the city was spent

by struggling at the courts against the fraud deeds that the landlords

of the neighbouing villages manufactured. These neighbor villages

were built on our lands. They were beaten, wounded and miraculously

survived murder attempts. My father lived an honorable life without

denying his roots and religion. He passed away in Brussels three

years ago, with his mind and soul worried about his land, of which

the trials stil continue. His children promised him that they would

continue the struggle. He never acted cowardly, was never lazy, never

laid an evil eye on other's work and never imposed us with animosity.

 

I met with my beloved husband, whom I used to call Cutag, Hrant

Dink in a boarding school; we grew up together; we got married. They

stripped up our boarding school from us. With the help of Jesus Christ

we overcame all the obstacles, hardships. We were worried at the

problems of our country together. And now, I cry with a deep sadness.

 

Until today we were treated humiliated, insulted for being Armenians;

we heard people use Armenian as a curse. We heard it and we stil hear

it from the newspapers, TVs, birth registration offices; from public

servants to the highest authorities. Sometimes we were treated as if we

were not citizens of this country, but migrants from somewhere else. We

still witness all these and this structuring and this undestanding;

this darkness continues to create murderer from babies.

 

Verse 21:3 says "God wishes rightfullness and justice rather than

sacrifies. Today, we see the babies who became murderers here; where

is the darkness that created them?

 

The darkness I point to is not anyone unknown. You can find pieces

of this darkness in Governorship, in Gendarmarie, in Armed Forces, in

National Intelligence Agency, in Police, in Government, in Opposition

Part, in parties that do not have a seat in the parliament, an deven

in the media and the non-governmental organizations. Their names,

their positions are known.

 

They continuously create murderers from babies and they do it to serve

Turkey. We have seen them in front of AGOS right after the Sabiha

Gokcen article and in front of the court houses where my husband was

being tried. But for some reason, justice and judiciary cannot reach

to them, do not want to reach to them.

 

Because, they know that if they dig further they will see that this

darkness exists in them also.

 

Therefore, if you are not from this darkness and do not approve it,

do not agree with them be courageous enough to go deeper and pull

down all the barriers that was put on this case. Be the instrument

of the God's justice; so that Turkey can be happy and this becomes

the starting point of bright days for Turkey.

 

Your Honor, my husband was tried for he wrote, for he thought and

spoke. As an innocent man, due to this understanding of the state he

was found guilty. I believe that the expressions of the state bears

separatism, insult, degradation; it encourages and multiplies the baby

murderers. In short, the source of this spring is the perception and

discourse. I am compliant against this discourse and the to the ones

who speak it out.

 

I, as a member of the people who live on these soil since Noah, want

to feel and see my children and myself as Armenian Turkish citizens,

as equal citizens.

 

Our proverb says "One who denies his origin is a sinner". What would

you expect from the one who denies or hides his origin? How can you

establish a strong building, a good character over a faulty base? I

ask you, can you trust him? Does it mean that we are enemies for not

denying our origin?

 

My beloved husband worked hard, never lied, never acted unjustly,

never said a word against his country either here or abroad. He was

a defender of truth and he lived as a true son and a true citizen. In

return, he received the traitors bullet

 

Whatever the justice you will see fit, it will not bring my husband

back. None of the rulings will be as equal as my loss of my husband. If

the justice is the foundation of the land, then I am in search of this

justice. I want Turkey to build upon this base. I want to see it not

in words, I want to see it in daily life, in discourse. Therefore,

I demand that all the responsible ones and the authorities declare:

"we could not, we did not want to protect your husband, our citizen. We

knowingly committed a crime, we apologize.

 

I demand from honorable court which is the representative of the state

that all the criminals receive the pusihment they deserve. I feel no

hatred to any of them; on the contrary I find all of them miserable and

I feel pity for them. I pray mercy for them with the love and justice

of Jesus Christ, one who knows all, sees all. I wish that with the

help of the Holy Spirit, they can feel that they need this mercy. And

I request that you act and decide in line with your responsibility.

 

With my due respect,

Rakel Dink.

 

[MosJan]

Security General Directorate: Yasin Hayal inciter of Dink murder

04.07.2007 15:53 GMT+04:00 Print version Send to mail In Russian In Armenian

 

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Yasin Hayal, suspected of inciting the murder of prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, established a group based on ‘friendship’ to act against Dink, the Security General Directorate noted in a report that was sent to the court, the Anatolia news agency reported.

 

Hayal had established the group because of the statements by Dink insulting Turkishness, after he was released from jail where he served time for bombing a McDonalds restaurant in Trabzon, the report said.

 

Hayal was the leader of the group and could order people in the group including the suspected assassin, according to the report. The report was sent upon the demand of the Court for Serious Crimes for information and documents about the alleged terror organization that was directed by the arrested suspects Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel. Tuncel did not have any tiered connections with the group, the report claimed. It was disclosed after Dink’s murder that Tuncel was a police informer and several times gave information that a plot will be conducted against Dink.

 

The trial was postponed to October 1, while four suspects charged for connections to Dink’s murder were released after the hearing that lasted 12 hours, including the suspect Salih Hacasalihoglu, who is accused of providing the bullets for the murder.

 

[MosJan]

With and Without Hrant

 

[July 2, 2007]

 

In Armenia, Hrant's heroic death came as a shock and generated much pride as well as envy. The most widespread emotion of all that it caused was amazement – what a public reaction, what a funeral. And since what took place in Istanbul was beyond the realm of any comprehension for those in Armenia, they attempted to describe events based on what they did know. Hrant once said, “ Everyone defends what they know”, and I countered with, “Even more so, what they don't know”.

 

It would be of some interest to understand whom this man was whose death brought some 200,000 people out into the streets shouting, “We are all Hrant” and “We are all Armenians”. People, who soon forgot about the reasons for what happened, started opining about the consequences.

 

1. Those with a direct understanding said, “ Look at how many Armenians there are in Istanbul”.

2. The progressives “ realized” they were Turks but fake ones. “ Look at the games these people are playing”.

3. Those who traveled to Turkey to attend the funeral returned with the following explanation. “They were the representatives of the minorities but there were some Turks attending as well”.

4. There were no small number who also commented, “Didn't I say Turks were better than Armenians?”

 

By the way, other than those from the Republic of Armenia (ROA), the only other people in the whole world who were amazed at the turn of events were those who organized the killing in the first place. Even they were surprised by the reaction to Hrant's killing despite the fact that they had egged the killer on by saying that Hrant was the Mustafa Kemal Attaturk of the Armenians and that by killing Hrant he would become a hero. If they could only have imagined for a moment the huge silent crowd that filled Halaskyargaz Street and the pain felt for just one journalist, perhaps they would have thought of another way to remove Hrant.

 

“Were they really sincere?” was the doubt raised from those from Armenia and I've since come to easily accept their lack of understanding. Indeed, if they had known Hrant they wouldn't pose such a question. Rather they'd drown themselves in tears and flock to Istanbul, to the very doorstep where the Armenian journalist, who amazed the world with his courage, didn't reach. His bravery didn't stop at the taboos and we're not only talking about the genocide issue but human rights in general, one of which is knowing the truth. In 1996, based on his right to speak the truth, he founded the “Agos” weekly and continuously for 10 years defended the Armenian community from the slander and vitriol directed at it. At the same time he shed light on those pages of history that had remained in the dark till then. In a word he illuminated. In Turkish, an intellectual is called enlightened. What do Armenians from the ROA know about Turkey or Turkish-Armenians whom they call diasporan Armenians, a term which I can't accept since in comparison to a Turkish-Armenian we in the ROA are also diasporan to a certain degree. They keep asking me, “Was it a real funeral?” My answer is directed to all of Armenia. “Yes, it was real, as real as Hrant was, although in the annals of Armenian history he was unique. As real as Malatya, where Hrant was born. His last name was a truly Armenian, and not a name of one of the neighborhoods in Yerevan. It's so Armenian that Armenians today don't even know what it means (Dink is the millstone where bulghur is ground). As real as the land that he loved, not for the bounty it gave but because the bones of his forefathers rested there.

 

Hrant never tired of reminding people that Armenians had been living on these lands for 4000 years, which is probably the number of years needed for someone like Hrant to be born. He was a receptacle in which was concentrated the knowledge, conscience, optimism and love of peace that was passed down over the ages and which was reflected in a fashion uniquely his own. Audacity was another of his attributes that no force could restrain since it was based on the power of love. His patriotism led him to engage in true democracy. He realized that love of one's country did not translate into despising another or viewing it as the enemy. And what about the events of 1915? That's more of an issue for them, not us. Rather than exerting pressure from outside and within, it would be more productive to enlighten and increase the number of those who understand what transpired. Wouldn't you agree that it's more difficult as well as dangerous to confront the issue in this fashion? You're breaking down traditional modes of thought and calling into question long held stereotypes. And these preset notions are to be found on both sides. Those from Armenia rely on the same slogan at all times and merely add the number 1, thus “1,500,000 + 1”. Here's there's no room for change. In Hrant's case I'd say that it would be more appropriate to use the equal sign, thus “1,500,000 = 1”, since Hrant was far from being a naive utopian dreamer as the local media painted him. He was well aware of where he lived, the work he was engaged in and the price he might have to pay. Thus, he was racing against the clock. The average person facing the constant threat of death might put thoughts of such a possibility off for the time being and live as if tomorrow was another day. Hrant however realized that for him tomorrow might never come and that he only had today to do the work others might never achieve in several lifetimes. The fact that he was both Armenian and a citizen of Turkey helped shape his ideological parameters and this had its advantages. His perspective on the Armenian issue was not only colored in terms of black and white but included a gray zone as well; something that was unacceptable to both Turkish and Armenian national extremists. “ It is vital that the reconstitution of a shared Turkish and Armenian future not be left in the hands of such people.” This was in response to an open letter sent to Hrant Dink by Sungur Savran where he wrote “If they put a finger on you I'll die inside. Immediately I hear the following, “ Do you believe the words of a Turk? A Turk is a Turk; A Turk killed an Armenian”.

 

It's not the one who understands who kills, it's the person who doesn't. The person who comprehends nothing only understands hate, intolerance and death. And this person thought he indeed had killed Hrant.

 

• “If they didn't kill Hrant no one would have known who he was.”

 

• “By dying he accomplished much more then when he was living.”

 

This is also the view of those from Armenia who know little of what they speak. Let me set the record straight, “ No one from Armenia would even have mentioned Hrant had there not been such an impressive funeral. As to the above second point, it was that very funeral which proved how important Hrant was in life.” The sorrow expressed by the Turkish people shows how much he accomplished while living. He came into this world as a unique example of what one can achieve in life. The love he had for people fostered a reciprocal love. But the reverse side of all love is hate and in this case it manifested itself in all its ferocity.

 

Hrant's lifeless body lay on one of Istanbul's busiest thoroughfares for quite some time. When he died it's as if the street, the house and the city died as well. It seemed that the entire world became unlivable as the crowds gathered in the dark expanses no longer inhabited by Hrant. They gathered at the entrance of the Agos offices and shouted, “We are all Hrant”, which actually meant, “We are all dead as well.” If the killers felt no remorse it was those thousands at the funeral procession who experienced the pain and pangs of conscience in their stead. Hrant carried the burden of Turkey's democratization on his shoulders but all they could do was watch in silence as Hrant stood before the court and replied to its “word game” charges. What a travesty of justice...but who had the courage to stand up and raise their voice in support of Hrant. In the end, they were only able to convince Hrant don't to leave Turkey.

 

“Don't forget the fact that you are innocent...If you leave, the country will suffer as a result...”

 

“ If you leave you'll be taking the humanity of this nation with you as well...”

 

“If you go, you will be sentencing us to a most despicable fate...”

 

“I wish to apologize...While watching television another piece of my heart broke away. Dear Dink, the number of those enlightened like yourself are few in this land. Your parting would deeply wound me (since in our hearts we know you are absolutely guiltless.) As a Turk I ask your forgiveness...for all the pain we have caused you.” (Excerpts of a letter sent to Agos. October 21, 2005)

 

And Hrant remained. He will forever remain in this land. Waves of grief and pain washed over the road leading to his final farewell.

 

They were Hrant's contemporaries.

 

He was the best of the bunch.

 

Thus their time was cut short.

 

***

 

-Hrant, do you know why the sun shines?

 

He gives me a curious glance and tries to come up with an answer.

 

-Because the sun gives and gives of its own energy.

 

Hrant shouts out in amazement and translates for the young people present in the editorial offices who have difficulty understanding Armenian. We are there celebrating New Years and have all gathered in Hrant's private office. He treats us to a large variety of dried fruits from Malatya. Hrant has only took weeks left to live. Who would have thought or believed, that the reality of that day, of being with Hrant, would soon turn into a very unreal dream.

 

Dzovinar Simonyan-Lokmagyuzyan (Yerevan-Istanbul)

Photo by Onik Grigoryan

[MosJan]

Dink case acquires new details

06.07.2007 17:31 GMT+04:00 Print version Send to mail In Russian In Armenian

 

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ New details in Hrant Dink’s murder case were revealed during the investigation launched against the “Union of Movement of Patriotic Forces.” Some information on assault of the Turkish Court of Appeals was also clarified.

 

Taner Unal, the arrested leader of the union, said the assault on the Court of Appeals was organized by retired captain Muzafer Tekin.

 

The investigation showed that during a phone conversation the union members mentioned Hrant Dink’s name.

 

Vehbi Shanly, the leader’s assistant and some Necat Mete were speaking on the phone a day before Dink’s slaying.

 

Turkish media made the conversation public. “Hello, any news?” “Hello. Everything is ok.” “Is it our friends to kill this man yesterday?” “Yes, our friends. Were they found?” “No, don’t worry, they were not found.”

 

In May 2006 Alparslan Aslan has committed an assault on the Court of Appeals. As result, one judge was killed, four wounded, Yerkir reports.

 

[MosJan]

EU-Turkey Commission: Anyone, who is involved in Hrant Dink’s murder, must be punished

09.07.2007 16:19 GMT+04:00 Print version Send to mail In Russian In Armenian

 

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The trial over murderers of journalist Hrant Dink should disclose all facts connected this case. “We stress the importance and necessity for a complete explanation of the circumstances surrounding Hrant Dink’s murder. The facts of this case, including possible involvement of officials, have to be brought into the light of day. The Turkish State will be closely watched by both the people of Turkey who want a just and open democracy with no dark corners, and their friends outside Turkey who support the reform process towards gaining full membership of the European Union. Consequently, it is highly important that everybody who was involved in the murder of Hrant Dink is punished,” head of the EU-Turkey Commission Joost Lagendijk and member of the same commission Cem Özdemir stated. Their statement underlines the necessity to remove Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, which repeatedly prosecuted Hrant Dink and other intellectuals, ABHaber reported.

 

Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code supposes criminal punishment for those who have ‘insulted Turkishness’, to which particularly refers any mentioning of the Armenian Genocide. Hrant Dink, writers Elif Şafak and Taner Akçam, as well as Nobel Prize laureate Orhan Pamuk were prosecuted under this article. Editor-in-Chief of Armenian-Turkish ‘Agos’ bilingual Hrant Dink was gunned down on January 19, 2007 by 17-year-old Ogun Samast.

 

[MosJan]

Hrant Dink honored with Freedom of Press 2007 award posthumously

11.07.2007 18:02 GMT+04:00 Print version Send to mail In Russian In Armenian

 

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Agos Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor Hrant Dink was posthumously honored with Freedom of Press 2007 award of the Union of Journalists of Turkey.

 

The award is given to those who were prosecuted under article 301. Ragip Zakaroglu and lawyer Gulcin Caylergilu were also awarded. Zakaroglu was the first to translate Franz Werfel’s “40 days of Musa Dag”, the book telling about the Armenian Genocide of 1915.

 

The awarding ceremony will take place July 24 in the Dolmabahce Palace built by Armenian architect Garabet Amira Balyan and his son Nigogayos Balyan by order of sultan Abdulmecid I.

 

[MosJan]

ACTUALLY THERE WERE MORE ACCOMPLICES INVOLVED IN HRANT DINK’S MURDER

• http://www.armtown.com/img/photo/pan_en_22969.jpgThe murder of Hrant Dink was planned by a bigger network than just the gang that is currently on trial, editor-in-chief of ‘Agos’ Armenian-Turkish bilingual Etyen Mahcupyan stated in an interview to Der Spiegel German newspaper. He said, a number of police officers knew what was going to happen. But they didn’t prevent the murder of Dink. “Critics have accused the authorities of failing to act on reports of a plot to kill Dink. Two of the suspects, Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel, even claim they were working for the security forces. The current case is seen as an important test of whether the Turkish judiciary is capable of investigating claims of official negligence,” Der Spiegel writes. According to the editor-in-chief of ‘Agos’ bilingual, the aim was probably to cause unrest in the election year with the intention of torpedoing Turkey’s chances of joining the European Union, “Presumably a whole series of attacks was planned, but the public reaction was too strong to go ahead with them.” “In the past the judges were usually afraid to take risks. None of them wanted to expose the links between the military, the government and the judiciary. But in this case there is the potential to really get to the bottom of things. The judges are flexible and are working with the lawyers,” he underlined. Answering the question if he had received threats concerning his work, Etyen Mahcupyan said “not at the moment”, but if it were politically desired then someone could find an old article and file charges, since he had already been put on trial for allegedly ‘insulting state institutions’.

[MosJan]

SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH TURKISH-ARMENIAN EDITOR ETYEN MAHCUPYAN

 

*

 

Etyen Mahcupyan, the editor-in-chief of the Armenian-Turkish weekly Agos, spoke to DER SPIEGEL about the trial of the alleged killers of his predecessor Hrant Dink.

 

Etyen Mahcupyan replaced murdered journalist Hrant Dink as editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos.

 

The Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was gunned down on Jan. 19 this year. Now, six months later, the trial of his alleged killer and 17 other suspects has started. The trial is being carried out behind closed doors because the accused gunman, Ogün Samast, is a minor.

 

Dink was hated by ultranationalists for describing the mass killing of Armenians in the early part of the 20th century as genocide. He was prosecuted for his comments under Article 301 of Turkey's penal code, which bans insults to Turkish identity.

 

Critics have accused the authorities of failing to act on reports of a plot to kill Dink. Two of the suspects, Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel, even claim they were working for the security forces. The current case is seen as an important test of whether the Turkish judiciary is capable of investigating claims of official negligence. DER SPIEGEL spoke to Etyen Mahcupyan, Dink's successor as editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos about the trial. SPIEGEL: The trial against Dink's alleged 17-year-old murderer and his accomplices has started. But now the investigation is to be continued. Were there other people involved? Etyen Mahcupyan: This type of attack must have been prepared by a bigger network than just the gang that is currently on trial. There had to be political connections, people who pulled strings, paid money or laid the ideological groundwork. So far only two members of the nationalist Great Unity Party (BBP) have been charged. SPIEGEL: One of the accused claims that they were controlled by a group within the police force. Mahcupyan: A number of police officers knew what was going to happen. But they didn't prevent the murder. Were they acting of their own accord, or did someone give them orders? That is unclear. SPIEGEL: What was the perpetrator's motive? Mahcupyan: There is a link here between ultra-nationalism and criminal gangs. The aim was probably to cause unrest in the election year with the intention of torpedoing Turkey's chances of joining the European Union. Presumably a whole series of attacks was planned, but the public reaction was too strong to go ahead with them. SPIEGEL: In general, politically motivated crimes are seldom solved in Turkey. Will it be different this time? Mahcupyan: In the past the judges were usually afraid to take risks. None of them wanted to expose the links between the military, the government and the judiciary. But in this case there is the potential to really get to the bottom of things. The judges are flexible and are working with the lawyers. SPIEGEL: You are Dink's successor as editor-in-chief at Agos. Are you and your colleagues still being threatened? Mahcupyan: Yes, but that is the usual hatred that we have to face. The Armenian community and their patriarch often receive threats from the nationalists as well. SPIEGEL: Dink was pulled up before judges on several occasions because of his articles. Have you also been hampered in your work? Mahcupyan: Not at the moment, but if it were politically desired then someone could find an old article and file charges. I have already been put on trial for allegedly insulting state institutions.

* Interview conducted by Annette Grossbongardt

 

[DeLaLa]

i see tons of newspaper articles posted in this thread but almost no personal oppinions or discussions ... sad sad ... i mean ...sorry , but anyone can google these articles ... can we start discussing ? is that possible ?

 

@iminhokis , vuyyyy , nor dessa vor tunal hosses ... lol ... (; ... nor egga , peits anank gereva vor anmenen shat mek shapat hossdex gmnam ... nayink intsi yerp turs ge neden (; peits hokche , es hedo xelok xelok mer forume yet gukam yev tserin tchixere g'kashem haha ... lianayin yev kezi xosk dvatsem vor pasta masta bidi eppem ...

ok, hokis , ertam sharnagem dolmaneres erik martotz edeven neddelu ... ays WODKA'n ga ya ... imin sirdes gamats gamats dolma'yi bes ge pategor hahahaha ... vuy vuy vuy ... multo pericoloso !

Edited July 20, 2007 by DeLaLa

[MosJan]

New suspect charged over Hrant Dink’s murder

20.07.2007 20:23 GMT+04:00 Print version Send to mail In Russian In Armenian

 

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Turkish prosecutors have charged a 19th suspect in connection with the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist, ‘Agos’ weekly editor-in-chief Hrant Dink. Coskun Igci, a relative of one of the alleged masterminds of the January 19 murder, was accused of belonging to an illegal organization and aiding the assassination, AFP reports. If found guilty, he risks a jail term of 22 to 35 years. The prosecutors called for Igci’s case to be merged with the trial of the 18 other suspects, which began in Istanbul July 2.

 

Igci’s nephew Yasin Hayal and Tuncel Erhan are accused of masterminding the plot and recruiting 17-year-old Ogun Samast to carry out the murder. Hayal told Igci he was plotting to kill Dink and sought his help to buy a gun, the indictment says. Igci maintains he informed a member of the intelligence service of the local paramilitary police of his nephew’s plans, it says. The Turkish security forces are under fire for failing to prevent the murder despite having received several intelligence notes of a plot to kill Dink. But no official has so far been charged over the murder.

 

Hrant Dink was known for his publications about mass killings of Armenians in 1915 in Ottoman Turkey. He had repeatedly received threats from radical Turkish nationalists. According to the investigation, Ogun Samast was connected with nationalists. He gunned down the 53-year-old journalist on January 19 near his ‘Agos’ editorial office in Istanbul.

 

[Aratta-Kingdom]

CASE IS FILED AGAINST LAWYER OF HRANT DINK

 

Noyan Tapan

Sep 4, 2007

 

ISTANBUL, SEPTEMBER 4, NOYAN TAPAN - ARMENIANS TODAY. A case has been

filed against Yucel Sayman, the lawyer of the family of Hrant Dink, the

editor-in-chief of the weekly "Agos", on the charge of "an offence".

 

According to the information provided by the Turkish press, the fact

that Yucel Sayman called Murad Inan, the lawyer of Kemal Kerincsiz,

who represented the plaintiff's side, "vile people" during the trial

on the case of Hrant and Arat Dinks, as well as of Sargis Serobian

held in May 2006 served as a basis for filing a case against him.

 

The lawyer of the family of Hrant Dink declared that his words were

not addressed to any person present at the trial.

 

It is claimed to sentence Yucel Sayman to 2 years' imprisonment on

the charge of "an offence" in the bill of indictment made by Hayrettin

Uysal, the Deputy of the Prosecutor General of Beyoglu.

 

[Aratta-Kingdom]

STATE ADMINISTRATION OF TRABZON REJECTS CLAIM OF HRANT DINK'S LAWYERS ON CONDUCTING INVESTIGATION AGAINST COLLABORATORS OF SECURITY SERVICE OF STATE

 

Noyan Tapan

Sep 4, 2007

 

TRABZON, SEPTEMBER 3, NOYAN TAPAN - ARMENIANS TODAY. The state

administration of Trabzon has rejected the claim of the lawyers of

Hrant Dink, the assasinated editor-in-chief of the weekly Agos, on

conducting an investigation against a number of collaborators of the

security service of the state.

 

According to the Turkish press, the state administration has not

allowed to conduct an investigation against Ramazan Akyurek and Resat

Altay, the former heads of the security service of Trabzon, Engin

Dinc, the former head of the special service, as well as the current

leader Faruk Sara, collaborators of the security service Ercan Demir,

Ozkan Mumcu, police collaborators Muhiddin Zenit and Mehmed Ayhan.

 

It is mentioned that in connection with the murder case of Hrant Dink

the Prosecutor's Office of Istanbul has applied to that of Trabzon

with a claim to hold an inquiry in connection with not taking necessary

measures in the direction of crime prevention on account of neglecting

in their duties against the collaborators of the security service of

the state.

 

[MosJan]

mer gamavor@ mi bana asum e / lava asum

[Takoush]

mer gamavor@ mi bana asum e / lava asum

It goes like this MosJan:

 

A good turk is a dead turk.

[Stormig]

It goes like this MosJan:

 

A good turk is a dead turk.

Hrant would have been proud of you.