The Assassination of Hrant Dink

[SoSarkissian]

Latest news: OGUN SAMAST - final trial is in April 2007.

OGUN a 17 years old youngster, who was arrested two days after Hrant Dink's incident. He confessed about his murder but still didn't tell who planned and ordered this assassination ...

[hahkp1975]

Thank you for the warm welcome everyone...I honestly felt delighted and honored...I represent a new generation that is willing to accept the past and to move on. You, the Armenians are the ones who were hurt, therefore you should set the terms. If you think this is a genocide, and if you believe you have enough evidence to do so (which, from what I have gathered, you do have), then for the sake of those who died, and for the sake of their families, then it should be called so. Perhaps it will not bring the dead back, but it is the least that could be done...I believe this is very important for the Armenians, that it should be recognised as genocide. And I suppose the sad truth (sad for the Turks) is this; Turkey will not able to move on without having accepted their mistakes. Perhaps, the name does not matter, what matters is this; that people died. And a lot of them did. If you could imagine the vastness of the situation. Not only the people. But the children they could never have...The grandchildren...It adds to an entire generation. A lost generation. You were robbed of that. I believe that this is the problem. The generation that you will never have back. I don't know why the Turks would refuse to call it a genocide...The Germans have, and they have moved on, they are now the biggest advocators of Human Rights. They have learned their lesson. As long as Turkey does not admit, then she will never be able to move on. And the rest of the world will shun them. Please, do not be bitter towards the Turks. We won our independence through very difficult circumstances through a war and sacrifice...And now the Islamists are trying to take it away again. That is why the Nationalists are so extreme. They are afraid. Try to understand them. We have only had a Republic since 1923, and there are so many people in Turkey who want to see Turkey a modern western country. Yet there are others who continue to be extremely religious. I for one am personally tired of seeing women in black shawls covering their entire body including their face save for the eyes. You could find that in Turkey. In modern day Istanbul. Everywhere. We are fighting them while trying to keep an image. You become extremely possesive about something that you want but are facing the danger of losing. That I believe, is the explanation of nationalism in Turkey. A country torn between the west and the Arabic influence. When Ataturk was in power, he had changed the law so that the Islamic call to prayer through the mosque, (the ezan) would be made in Turkish. Now its back to being made in Arabic. Millions today are saying prayers in a language that they don't understand. Can you imagine the horribleness of the situation?...This for me, the fear of losing the country to internal forces, is the fear that drives the nationalists. The reason they cannot find any fault in Turkey. The reason they react to people like Orhan Pamuk and Elif Safak who "insult the Turkishness". But the real people who actually do insult the "Turkishness" are the people who walk the streets of Istanbul and Ankara in veils. Of course it is their right, everyone is free to do as they wish, but because of these people, most Westerners believe that all the Turks are like that. This is what drives me crazy. The denial...The extremists...What could be done?

JADE

Welcome to the Armenian Genocide forum and for sure I might say you are welcomed in any armenian forum. There are no myths here, no cliche's, no bigotry, I assure you, armenians are ordinary, life-loving, hard working people who wish no harm to their neighbors.

You are lucky that you live in Europe now and you acquire your education in a liberal environment where cultural diveristy is appreciated.

I can assure you that you'll make friends in here, discuss many issues of common interests and why not, one day you'll be invited to visit Armenia. Armenians have strong, established unique culture and the westerners among them, were flourishing in Ottoman Empire up to 1915. Had they been living in Turkey now side by side with the turks, kurds and greeks, your country would have been a different place by now.

Welcome again and all the best!

[Panos26]

As a young Greek i would like to condemn the assassination of Hrant Dink.My condolances go out to the Armenian people all around the world.I hope that the Armenian voice for the recognision of the Armenian Genocide will be heard all around the world.On behalf of my country which has officially recognised the Armenian Genocide i offer my solidarity to all Armenian people.
I hope that Turkey will accept the Genocide and display a democratic image before it join us in the eu.Turkey's constant denial of the Genocide is yet another crime added in the long list of human rights violations that continue taking place in Turkey.Denial and silence can not change history.
I am calling all Turkish people and especially young Turks to accept the Armenian Genocide and thus allowing the souls of 1,5m Armenians to rest in peace...

[SoSarkissian]

Yassou Panos, well said, thank you ... efxaristu paraboli

[Panos26]

My great-grandmother's stories about Armenian people...

Geia sou SoSarkissian....Parakalw...
I think this forum is a good place to tell you a few things about how most of the Greek community got to know the drama of the Armenian people...
Every third Greek family in Greece,Cyprus and all around the world has had some experience with the Armenian Genocide.This has happened mainly through the stories of our forebears that lived in Minor Asia,Anatolia and Istanbul during the critical period of 1915 to 1922.
My great-grandmother(ageing 105 years old and still clever like a fox told me a number of stories about her best friend which happened to be Armenian around the 1920 period.They both lived in the city of Andrianoupolis(i keep forgetting the turkish name for the city).The city is locaded in Eastern Thrace in the European part of nowday's Turkey,very close to the Greek and Bulgarian borders.A thriving Greek and Armenian community used to live in the city.My great-grandmother would always say that we Greeks were always treated much better than the Armenians(mainly due to the fact that we had a political existance and a newly independent country just across the borders) whereas the Armenian people did not have any true independent political existance.She would say that the Armenian people were treated like dirt by the Turks...
Her best friend was forced to moove with her family in the depths of Asia in mainland Turkey....I recall that my great-grandmother would always cry when she remembers her close childhood friend...She says that her friend and her family were mooved to concetrantion camps by the young Turks movement...
From that period on Armenian people that managed to escape the turkish rage fled to Greece,Cyprus,Lebanon and other neighbouring countries and all around the world.In Greece still lives a small community of Armenian people that have managed to lead very succesfull lives and have been fully assimalated to the modern Greek reality.Some very famous singers,composers,writers,academics even politicians in Greece have an Armenian background.The Greek community has a fairly good knowledge of the Armenian Genocide and i believe that my country has been one of the first countries world-wide that has officially recognised the Armenian Genocide...In fact the April 24 day is fairly known here in Greece mainly due to the fact that 5 days earlier April 19 the Greek population that lived in the Vosporos area had undergone violent prosecutions by the young Turks movement and this day is important for every Greek around the world...
My great-grandma has never forgotten her friend...they lived together in the same neighbour,they played together they practically grew up together...one day they just mooved them violently...my great-grandma has never stopped mentioning her chilhood's friend name....Angin...she never saw her again....she aged 13....my post is dedicated to Angin's loving memory(i know my great-grandma will be deeply moved from my gesture)....Angin may you rest in peace....


Simera eimaste oloi o Hrant Dink,simera eimaste oloi Armenioi(today,we are all Hrant Dink,today we are all Armenians..)

[imported_Armine]

Police question BBP officials over Dink assassination
Four right-wing politicians on Monday were transported to İstanbul from the Black Sea port of Trabzon for interrogation in connection with the killing of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, news reports and officials said.


Yaşar Cihan
Trabzon police on Sunday detained Yaşar Cihan, head of the local branch of the conservative and nationalist Great Unity Party (BBP), and three other party officials, the party's leader, Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu, confirmed Monday. Cihan's son, Bahadır Cihan was among those detained. Two of the other suspects were identified as Halis Egemen, a standby member of the BBP's Central Executive Committee (MYK) and Ersin Öztürk.

Cihan senior and Egemen were detained on the grounds they had given money to one of the key suspects in the Dink murder who had served jail time for bombing a fast-food store in Trabzon prior to Dink’s assassination. Shortly after Dink’s killing, Cihan admitted that he had given money to one of the suspects’ families but had insisted it was part of charity money he regularly donates to needy families. The suspects were brought to İstanbul with their hands cuffed, news agencies reported.

Hours earlier, Patriarch Mesrob II, the spiritual head of the Armenian Orthodox community in Turkey, had criticized authorities for failing to find those who ordered Dink’s killing. Speaking to the press in the southeastern city of Gaziantep on Monday, Yazıcıoğlu expressed that not everyone who testified regarding the murder necessarily had any links with the murder. In a brief interview with the ANKA news agency, Yazıcıoğlu said he was not clear on what grounds his party’s members in Trabzon had been arrested on and declined to further comment due to the ongoing judicial process. The interrogation of the BBP suspects comes one week after lawyers representing the family of Dink made a press statement expressing their opinion that the integrity of the rule of law in Turkey was itself on trial. The statement last week called for a more vigorous criminal investigation into what they said was a criminal conspiracy with connections to state institutions themselves.

“This is a political assassination and culpability does not end with the unemployed boy who pulled the trigger or his immediate accomplices in Trabzon,” said Bahri Belen, a legal representative of the Dink family. He was speaking in front of the Beşiktaş High Criminal Court after presenting a petition to the public prosecutor’s office to widen the murder investigation. “The ability to organize an assassination in İstanbul all points to a wider and more determined organization,” he said.


27.03.2007

Today’s Zaman with wires İstanbul

[imported_Armine]

@Jade: I agree with what you are saying.

But I also think there are in Turkey more nationalists then we think. And not only the ones in veils you don’t have to walk in veils to be an extreme nationalist. I think it became worse and tenser after the killing of Hrant Dink. And now of course the same happens with the genocide bill.

What we can do about it don’t think we can do much. We can hope that they will change or remove article 301. Europe has to put pressure on Turkey to do so. But for a big part Turkey itself and the government is responsible they have a big part in this as well. Media, schools, is influencing people politically and through Imams. Not only in Turkey, but also from out of Turkey they still try to influence Turkish people. They have Turkish cable television, they read the newspapers they have Imams here as well. They say to Turkish people in the Dutch politics if you recognize the genocide we will punish you etc.

I went ones with my boyfriends (my boyfriend is Turkish) sister to gathering among girls we talked some drank tea. Maybe you find this strange being an Armenian but I also get to see things that are going on and you always learn from new experiences.

And then an Imam came reading from the Koran and after that he began to talk about America (not in a nice way) and the existence of Turkey. How they survived the Wars living in Turkey for 600 years now. Never telling the true part about the Armenians. That we Muslims must stick together that is the only way we can survive. So I think it is a big and heavy process, which will take along time. But Turkey has to start this process otherwise it will only get worse.

Also important I think is that intellectuals in Turkey will stand up more and more about those issues like the genocide and nationalism.

[SoSarkissian]

Favor asking from Panos

Thank you again Panos for sharing your Great Grandmother's story with us. I personally ask you for a favor to all Armenians;

If you have any photo of your grandmother and her Armenian friend together, or any letter between the two or even any other document about that story (or any other story about Armenians) ..., I would like you to submit it to me so I can upload it in www.genoposts.com where facts and documents are shown.

This will be highly appreciated by all Armenians, simply because we're adding another fact in our Genocide archives.

You can email to [email protected]

[Joseph]

Geia sou SoSarkissian....Parakalw...
I think this forum is a good place to tell you a few things about how most of the Greek community got to know the drama of the Armenian people...
Every third Greek family in Greece,Cyprus and all around the world has had some experience with the Armenian Genocide.This has happened mainly through the stories of our forebears that lived in Minor Asia,Anatolia and Istanbul during the critical period of 1915 to 1922.
My great-grandmother(ageing 105 years old and still clever like a fox told me a number of stories about her best friend which happened to be Armenian around the 1920 period.They both lived in the city of Andrianoupolis(i keep forgetting the turkish name for the city).The city is locaded in Eastern Thrace in the European part of nowday's Turkey,very close to the Greek and Bulgarian borders.A thriving Greek and Armenian community used to live in the city.My great-grandmother would always say that we Greeks were always treated much better than the Armenians(mainly due to the fact that we had a political existance and a newly independent country just across the borders) whereas the Armenian people did not have any true independent political existance.She would say that the Armenian people were treated like dirt by the Turks...
Her best friend was forced to moove with her family in the depths of Asia in mainland Turkey....I recall that my great-grandmother would always cry when she remembers her close childhood friend...She says that her friend and her family were mooved to concetrantion camps by the young Turks movement...
From that period on Armenian people that managed to escape the turkish rage fled to Greece,Cyprus,Lebanon and other neighbouring countries and all around the world.In Greece still lives a small community of Armenian people that have managed to lead very succesfull lives and have been fully assimalated to the modern Greek reality.Some very famous singers,composers,writers,academics even politicians in Greece have an Armenian background.The Greek community has a fairly good knowledge of the Armenian Genocide and i believe that my country has been one of the first countries world-wide that has officially recognised the Armenian Genocide...In fact the April 24 day is fairly known here in Greece mainly due to the fact that 5 days earlier April 19 the Greek population that lived in the Vosporos area had undergone violent prosecutions by the young Turks movement and this day is important for every Greek around the world...
My great-grandma has never forgotten her friend...they lived together in the same neighbour,they played together they practically grew up together...one day they just mooved them violently...my great-grandma has never stopped mentioning her chilhood's friend name....Angin...she never saw her again....she aged 13....my post is dedicated to Angin's loving memory(i know my great-grandma will be deeply moved from my gesture)....Angin may you rest in peace....


Simera eimaste oloi o Hrant Dink,simera eimaste oloi Armenioi(today,we are all Hrant Dink,today we are all Armenians..)

Thanks Panos. My Great-Aunt and her family were originally from Adana but made their way to Corfu and then finally settled in Piraeus. They were welcomed with open arms Greece and made a pretty good life there until WWII. When the Nazis took over from the Italian occupiers they suffered alongside their Greek counterparts from lack of food and constant harrassment, bombardment, etc. She still remembers when the German troops slaughtered the Italian troops (who were previously allies) and the streets ran red with blood. One of her brothers, Stepan, fought alongside the Greek partisans against the Nazis but was never heard from again.

[Panos26]

I do have pictures...

SoSarkissian.As fas as i known my great-grandmother's archives contain some pictures of her friend and her family.I can also confirm the last name of my great-grandma's friend which is Alexanian.That is as far as i know.
My great-grandma lives in the extreme north of the county whereas i live in Athens.I will do my best once i visit my great-grandma to gather all the material i can and send it to you.Is there any national armenian foundation that i can provide the material that i will gather???
The stories i know from my great-grandma about Armenian people are countless...