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For those of you who follow the debate on the Armenian Genocide, Turkish
law 301 which makes it a crime to use the "G" word and "defame the Turkish
Republic, Hrank Dink, Armenian-Turkish editor of Argos was assassinated
this morning in Istanbul. We have direct connections with his group as
Taner Akcam, the leading Turkish historian who confirms the events of 1915
as Genocide is on our staff.
This is from New Anatolian but you can find a lot more on the web:
Prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink murdered
(AP)
19 January 2007
Journalist Hrant Dink, one of the most prominent voices of Turkey's
Armenian community, was killed by a gunman Friday at the entrance to his
newspaper's offices, police said.
Dink, a 53-year-old Turkish citizen of Armenian descent, had gone on trial
numerous times for speaking out about the mass killings of Armenians by
Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the 20th century. He had received
threats from ultra-nationalists, who viewed him as a traitor.
Dink was a public figure in Turkey, and as the editor of the bilingual
Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos, one of its most prominent Armenian
voices.
In his last column for Agos, Dink complained that he had become famous as
an enemy of Turks and wrote of threats against him. He said he had
received no protection from authorities despite his complaints.
"My computer's memory is loaded with sentences full of hatred and
threats," Dink wrote. "I am just like a pigeon ... I look around to my
left and right, in front and behind me as much as it does. My head is just
as active."
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in a news conference after the
killing, vowed to catch those responsible and called the slaying an attack
on Turkey's unity.
Erdogan said he had appointed top officials from the justice and security
ministries to investigate the killing, and that two suspects had been
arrested in Istanbul. He gave no details on the suspects.
"Hrant's body is lying on the ground as if those bullets were fired at
Turkey," Can Dundar, also a journalist, told private NTV television.
Turkey's relationship with its Armenian community is fraught with tension,
controversy and painful memories of a brutal past.
Much of Turkey's once-sizeable Armenian population was driven out
beginning around 1915.
During World War I, as the Ottoman Turkish empire fought Russian forces,
some of the Armenian minority in eastern Anatolia sided with the Russians.
In May 1915, the Armenian minority, one or two million strong, was
forcefully deported and marched from the Anatolian borders towards Syria
and Mesopotamia (now Iraq). Many died en route.
Armenia says 1.5 million Armenians were killed in this period, either
through systematic massacres or through starvation.
It alleges that a deliberate genocide was carried out by the Ottoman
Turkish empire.
Turkey acknowledges that many Armenians died, but says Turks died too, and
that massacres were committed on both sides as a result of inter-ethnic
violence and the wider World War.
Dink had been convicted of trying to influence the judiciary in 2005 after
Agos ran stories criticizing a law making it a crime to insult Turkey, the
Turkish government or the Turkish national character.
The conviction was rare even in a country where trials of journalists,
academics and writers have become common. Most of the cases, including
that of Nobel Prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk last year, were either
dropped on a technicality or lead to acquittals.
Fehmi Koru, a columnist at the Yeni Safak newspaper, said the killing was
aimed at destabilizing Turkey.
"His loss is the loss of Turkey," Koru said. Dozens of other journalists,
many of them friends of Dink, publicly condemned the killing. Broadcasters
on CNN-Turk and NTV, two of the major news stations, called it "shameful,"
"saddening" and "embarrassing."
Dr. Stephen Feinstein, Director
Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
University of Minnesota
100 Nolte Hall West
315 Pillsbury Drive
Minneapolis, MN. 55455
Phone: (612) 626-2235
FAX: (612) 626-9169
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
WEB SITE: http://www.chgs.umn.edu
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