The Assassination of Hrant Dink

[Joseph]

American Spectator article

Turkish Blood

By Christopher Orlet
Published 1/22/2007 12:07:02 AM
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 likely to be a hard year. The trials will continue, new ones will be started. Who knows what other injustices I will be up against." Even so, the editor believed 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.

[cem]

The nationalist politicans and journalists are crying pathetic crocodile tears. They are merely embarrassed and doing damage control for Turkey. If anything, they will be relieved and happy when the anger blows over and they don't have Hrant Dink to contend with anymore. They are making the arbitrary comments that one must make when such murders occur. We've posted some of the commentaries on this website from such individuals. They are insulting to Armenians and it would have been better if they had written and/or said nothing at all. They are far more worried about the outside perception of Turkey than about actual justice. They are hypocrites and this only adds to our anger. Slogans, marches, and false optimism are meaningless.

dear joseph,

i agree with you. but also suggest you that instead of sticking in the decleration of politicians, please consider the reaction of turkish people in cooperating with armenians (which is unexpected for you) after this murder.

kind regards

[1.5 million]

dear my brother,
today we were ten thousands of turkish people collected to farewell our brother hrant. however he wanted a silent funeral in his testament, we couldnt help shouting as we are all hrant, we are all armenians.. we walked 8 km all together. i wish, if only, you could also be with us..

And I too wish I could have been there.

I'll tell you what - get 100,000 together in Istanbul on April 24th and I'll be sure to join you. We can all shout together - "Turkey recognize the Armenian genocide!"

[1.5 million]

I believe that the other side of the "European Enlightment" had devastating impact on inhabitants of Africa, Asia, Americas, Crimea, Cuacasus, Middle East, Balkans, Anatolia, and finally in Europe.

I agree completely that European expansion/colonialism devestated the native peoples of Africa and the Americas and to a lesser extent Asia proper...I don't agree with your assignment of blame on the Europeans for the destruction of the "native" peoples of Anatolia. Their destruction began with the expansionaist and colonial practices of the Ottoman Turks that culminated in the modern Genocide of the Armenian people and this crime needs to take its rightful place in history along with the modern genocide of the Jews in WWII and along with the also known and accepted destruction of the native populations of the Americas and Africa by the European powers. Obviously post-industrial European derived nationalism played a significant factor (encouraging the breakup of the Ottoman Empire which was already on its way down due to a failed outmoded utterly corrupt and disfunctional governmental system and losses in various wars) - but we don't blame the Holocaust on the inequities of the Treaty of Versailles that (perhaps unfairly) punished Germany and Germans and deprived them of colonies and Empire - but on the Germans themselves and on the revolution and racist destructive policies of the Nazi party and the Germans. Likewise we cannot directly blame any but the Turks themselves for planning and carrying out the Armenian Genocide - with the same objectives aimed at eliminating Armenians as the Germans attempted with the Jews. Yes we need to understand all of the various factors that led to the environment where the ascendency of such evil men was possible and how they could come to rule a nation and direct its hatred and certainly outside as well as internal facotrs played their parts - but again - it is imperitive that we do not whitewash the record - that those responsible for such be properly judged and that the nation that commited such acts be condemned and not allowed to evade responsibility. Germany and Germans are not now seen as vicious killers - and neither will modern Turks be thought of as such - however by continueing the denial of the history and evasion of responsibility and particularly by continuing to invent excuses and attempt to blame the victims Turkey and Turks of today have become direct accomplices to these crimes and history will judge you as well.

[Tongue]

And I too wish I could have been there.

I'll tell you what - get 100,000 together in Istanbul on April 24th and I'll be sure to join you. We can all shout together - "Turkey recognize the Armenian genocide!"

I think it's way more important for the Turkish nation as a whole to learn the truth about the genocide so tragedies like Hrant Dint's murder don't occur again.. than the official position of Turkish government while racism and hatred is growing amongst its people towards the Armenians. What we need to do first and foremost is educate its public, not pressure the government.

[1.5 million]

We hear words of concilliation now - and of course many are scincere - but not all - nor do most go far enough and point fingers where they need pointing. But mark my words - in another month there will be more opinions expressed by Turks that blame Armenians for their troubles and there will be more attacks and such against Armenians and I think nothing will change.

[Joseph]

We hear words of concilliation now - and of course many are scincere - but not all - nor do most go far enough and point fingers where they need pointing. But mark my words - in another month there will be more opinions expressed by Turks that blame Armenians for their troubles and there will be more attacks and such against Armenians and I think nothing will change.

Agreed. During the Congressional debate and the possible passage of the Genocide Bill in Congress, they come in droves with threats, insults, etc.

[nkirimli]

Sorry but what I couldnt understand is, why is this situationwould (Hrant Dink's murder) lead people to admit armenian genocide? Hrant Dink is murdered for his words "dirty Turk blood", not for being an armenian?? And what is the relation between this situation and the genocide claims?

[cem]

to both joseph and 1.5 million

Since the subject is the assasination of Hrant Dink, please let me tell about him and his thoughts a little.

He was Armanian like you. He was feeling the same emotions about the tragedies in the history too. There is no doubt. Additionnally since he was living in Turkey between the Turks, he was knowing real facts about structure of turkish people. Thats why we call him as "bridge" between you and us.

For him, democratisation of Turkey is the most important thing for Armanian problem. If Turkey succeeds to improve democracy, turkish people will be more selfconfident to face with the history.

Demanding and insisting genocide agreement from outside, would blow up the fanatism and nationalism in Turkey and strengthen the groups who are afraid of democracy.

[Joseph]

Sorry but what I couldnt understand is, why is this situationwould (Hrant Dink's murder) lead people to admit armenian genocide? Hrant Dink is murdered for his words "dirty Turk blood", not for being an armenian?? And what is the relation between this situation and the genocide claims?

Ah yes, I knew this was coming. Another Turk who completely misunderstood Hrant Dink's words either willingly or unwillingly (perhaps due to acute illiteracy). In Hrant Dink's editorial for which he was charged, he was saying that Armenians had to get hatred out of their blood but some Turks, mainly those who were out to get Hrant Dink, chose to misinterpret what he was saying and basically translate them into "Turks having polluted and dirty blood". While many Turks and others understood his words, the ulusalci were looking for any reason to drag him through the mud. You are part of that as well it seems. So indeed he was both prosecuted, convicted and then killed for being Armenian. For this he became a target by the ones you seem to admire. As has been witnessed at both his trial and his murder, there were those at to get him and were looking for any reason to do see...even if they had to make one up.