The Assassination of Hrant Dink

[1.5 million]

Two Officials removed - more to follow...exactly why is what is not explained...

PanARMENIAN.Net/ Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said his government would deal with the Hrant Dink murder case effectively and that the investigation into the case would continue at full speed. Two top officials in Trabzon, where Dink’s suspected murderer Ogun Samast comes from, were removed from the office last week and Erdoğan implied that more officials could be removed from their posts in other provinces. Asked if the Dink murder could be linked to the upcoming presidential election, Erdoğan said, “That’s possible,” Today’s Zaman reports. The premier also noticed that changes in election time are possible. Asked whether parliamentary elections, scheduled for November, could be held at an earlier date, Erdoğan said changes in the date were possible. “What we want is to have a democratic, undisputed election and get the results as soon as possible,” he said.

http://www.panarmenian.net/news/eng/?nid=20897

[1.5 million]

Not sure if this commentary has been posted already...

Note the author is a prof of Security Studies...this is an expected (thoguh still disgusting) Turkish spin...

http://www.turkishweekly.net/comments.php?id=2436

[Gavur]

What a dumbo!

[1.5 million]

More commentary on the backlash in Turkey for the "We are all Armenians" statements

http://www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=42328

The bad (and fully expected):

Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli has voiced his annoyance with these slogans, thinking that it is not appropriate for a Turk to say "I am an Armenian" no matter what the reason.

The Good (and unexpected but hopeful):

Another columnist from Yeni Şafak, Ali Bayramoğlu, is also very critical of those who were disturbed by these slogans. He comments that Turkey has not cried this much for any of its Armenians, it has never been so shaken over the death of an Armenian. Bayramoğlu calls this a "turning point" for Turkey. He claims many Turks harbor a feeling of shame and embarrassment, or at least a feeling of pity, in their hearts. The turning point, he says, is the soul-searching here, but the most important thing is the social reaction to a man's unjust killing and the radical nationalism and racism behind it.

[Kharpert]

Policemen pose with (Hrant DInk's) killer for photos

Published: 03/02/2007 12:00 AM (UAE)
Policemen pose with killer for photos

AP


Istanbul: Turkish media yesterday published photographs and video of police officers posing with the alleged killer of an ethnic Armenian journalist.

The photographs show the suspect in the killing, 17-year-old nationalist Ogun Samast, holding out a Turkish flag and posing with officers, some of them in uniform.

Behind Samast a poster with another Turkish flag carries the words of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the revered founder of modern Turkey: "The nation's land is sacred. It cannot be left to fate."

The Turkish press took on an outraged tone, calling it "the hero treatment" for a nationalist killer.

There were conflicting reports on whether the photographs were taken at a military police office at the bus station where Samast was captured or at a police station later.

Probe

Police spokesman Esmail Caliskan said the officers involved in the images were being investigated, as were those who leaked them to the media.

Samast is charged with killing Hrant Dink, a 52-year-old ethnic Armenian journalist who had angered Turkish nationalists with repeated assertions that the mass killings of Armenians around the time of World War I was genocide.

More than 100,000 people marched at Dink's funeral, many of them chanting for Turkey to abolish a repressive Article in the penal code used against many intellectuals, including Dink, who spoke openly on controversial topics.

The notorious Article 301 of the Turkish penal code makes insulting Turkey or the Turkish national character a crime.

An eighth man was charged over the murder Dink, the state Anatolian news agency said.

An Istanbul court has charged Tuncay Uzundal with belonging to an armed gang, the agency said, adding another man was released without charge.

No more details were immediately available but the other seven men charged, including self-confessed gunman Ogun Samast, are all from the Black Sea province of Trabzon.

Police are still questioning three more people in the case. Turkish newspapers say police were warned a year ago about a plot to kill Dink but failed to act to prevent the killing.

Interior Ministry inspectors began probing the Istanbul police handling of the case on Thursday, media said.

http://www.gulfnews.com/world/Turkey/10101562.html

[Kharpert]

Picture is an incentive for murder
Saturday, February 3, 2007
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OPINIONS

Mehmet Ali Birand

The day right after the Hrant Dink murder, Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy Ömer Çelik suggested that Dink's coffin should be wrapped in the Turkish flag. The aim of this gesture was to show that Turkey stood by Dink. There were protests from some groups and was argued that the Turkish flag could only be wrapped around the coffins of martyrs (those fallen while battling for their county) or prominent statesmen. There was much talk about the honor of the flag. Even Parliament Speaker Bülent Arınç did not support this idea and said that �the practices about the usage of the flag are determined by laws.�

And what do we see now?

The same flag was given to Dink's murderer Ogün Samast and was employed for a pretense of bravery. Is our flag better honored now?

This image broadcast by TGRT News clearly displays the undercurrent that created the Dink murder.

Let's assume that the capturers of a murderer had a �souvenir photo� taken to brag about having caught him. And let's also assume that it was solely this feeling that compelled all those in that photograph to pose. This does not change the result. It is horrible enough to be in that photo even with such reasoning and not to perceive any drawbacks about it, because at the end of the day, a murderer takes on a heroic posture in that picture.

No one should dare claim �the act of a couple of mindless people cannot be attributed to the whole police force.�

Whatever the goal of this photograph, it is an incentive for murder because this photo establishes that it is very normal to murder specific people, that the killers should be considered heroes and not murderers.

In other words, it is a picture of the disclosure of a mind set.

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=65434

[Gavur]

I want to know when will MIT open their archives?

[Gavur]

Turks Sacked In Killer Video Probe

Turks Sacked In Killer Video Probe

Reuters

Two Turkish security officials lost their jobs on Monday in a widening investigation into video footage that appeared to portray as a hero the teenage killer of a prominent Turkish-Armenian editor.

The state-run Anatolian news agency said authorities in the Black Sea city of Samsun had sacked a fifth policeman and transferred a fifth member of the paramilitary gendarmerie to other duties following similar dismissals last Friday. It said the dismissals were made at the request of a government inspector but gave no further information.

The video footage showed Ogun Samast, 17, posing in front of a Turkish flag with security officials shortly after his arrest last month on suspicion of killing the editor Hrant Dink outside his newspaper office in Istanbul. He has confessed to the crime.

Dink's funeral drew 100,000 mourners onto the streets in protest at the militant nationalism that apparently inspired his killer. Seven others have also been charged in the Dink case. Dink had infuriated Turkish nationalists by urging Turkey in his writings to face up to its responsibility for the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915.

The video footage has revived fears in Turkey of a shadowy "deep state" working in collusion with criminal gangs. The "deep state" is code for hardline nationalists purportedly based in the security forces who are ready to break the law if need be in defense of their ideology.

Last week, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, under pressure in an election year for failing to combat crime, vowed to tackle what he called "gangs within state institutions".

[Gavur]

Dink murder drags PM and nationalist party into war of words

Dink murder drags PM and nationalist party into war of words
Monday, February 5, 2007


DOMESTIC
All News »



MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have waged a war of words after the former accused the latter of attempts to 'besmirch Turkish nationalism'

ANKARA - Turkish Daily News

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=65466

A recent debate on nationalism between political party leaders, sparked after the assassination of the editor in chief of Armenian newspaper Agos, Hrant Dink, has led to an increasingly heated exchange between the prime minister and Turkey's leading nationalist party.

On Friday Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli accused Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of attempting to set up schemes to “besmirch Turkish nationalism” and also of trying to imply that the state is the “source of all evil,” referring to a recent statement in which Erdoğan openly speculated about the possible involvement of a “deep state” in the Dink murder.

Bahçeli also accused the prime minister of devising plots to “offend national values” and acting as a “provocateur with his words and deeds.”

“… The prime minister has become the inciter of the assassination which had Turkey at the heart of its target. The prime minister leads the hatred and hostility caravan, which set out with this purpose (destroying Turkey's national integrity),” Bahçeli said.

The prime minister's quick response to Bahçeli's words was no more cordial than the MHP leader's statement. “These are no nationalists; they are racist, they are discriminatory and skull measurers,” he said over the weekend.

This in turn led to a statement from MHP Deputy Chairman Mehmet Şandır in response to the prime minister's comments. “The prime minister, who takes every opportunity to put all the blame on nationalism, is in reality expressing his hostile emotions and opinions held towards the Turkish nation,” Şandır said in a written statement released Sunday.

Şandır expressed his opinion that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government had spent its five years in power complaining and “accusing others” about almost everything.

The statement said Prime Minister Erdoğan's recent statements on “nationalism” were “clearly targeting the MHP.”

“Nationalism is the feeling and expression of belongingness to the Turkish Nation, which has everyone living in this country as an equal and dignified member. Referring to nationalism and Turkish nationalists as ‘racist, murderer and barbarous' is actually blatant slander and insult against the Turkish Nation itself.”

Şandır's statement also implied that the prime minister was part of an “international conspiracy” to fan hatred and hostility in Turkey.

“It has now become apparent that those who used such a despicable and low murder as that of Hrant Dink's as a means to attack nationalism are partners in a coalition of a profound international siege surrounding Turkey.”

Şandır's statement also said the “profound coalition” was working to stop the MHP, the only party with the potential to drown the coalition's hopes.



The deep state:

Speaking to party members and delegates in İzmir and Manisa on Friday and Saturday respectively, Erdoğan speculated about the involvement of a network of renegade agents within the state, driven by hard-line nationalism in the murder of Hrant Dink.

The deep state concept has been around for decades, and was first openly acknowledged by the late Bülent Ecevit during his term as prime minister in the second half of the '70s.

Some suggest it is a clandestine group within the security and intelligence services – and the state bureaucracy – that resists change, sometimes violently; while others say it is not a single group, but a set of beliefs – whose protectors include the judiciary and the educational system – that espouse the centrality of the state in politics.

“They ask me whether there really is a deep state? I repeat once again: There is a deep state. They tell me reveal this structure. Well if it was that easy why didn't you do it before now, when you were in power?” Erdoğan asked his political rivals in remarks casting suspicion on deep state involvement in Dink's killing.

[Steph]

Officer suspended in Dink probe
By Sarah Rainsford
BBC News, Istanbul



Dink had angered Turkish nationalists
A senior Turkish policeman has been suspended amid allegations police had advance warning of the murder of ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink.
Ten officers and paramilitary policemen have already been suspended in the Black Sea city of Samsun.

They were suspended after video images were leaked to the press showing officers posing with a teenager who confessed to the murder.

Mr Dink was shot outside his newspaper office on 19 January.

Informer's 'tip-off'

The inquiry into the official handling of the case has raised serious questions over the possible complicity of Turkey's security forces with extreme nationalist groups.

Hrant Dink had angered Turkish nationalists by challenging the state position that the mass killing of Ottoman Armenians by Turks in WWI was not genocide.

Investigators are looking into allegations that Istanbul police were informed that Hrant Dink's life was in danger eleven months before he was killed.

Reports in the Turkish press say the head of police intelligence here admits receiving a letter from police in the city of Trabzon last February with a tip-off from an informer.

The teenager who confessed to killing Hrant Dink is from Trabzon.


The suspect posed with a Turkish flag next to security officials

The reports say the Istanbul police intelligence chief made only superficial inquiries and failed to pass the information on to his superiors.

Police sources have confirmed to the BBC the officer concerned has now been suspended from duty while the investigation continues.

The focus now appears to be on whether or not the failure to act was deliberate.

For days a fierce debate has raged about possible links between those who killed Hrant Dink and ultra-nationalist networks operating with the state and security forces.

'Dark structures'

For many those suspicions hardened when video footage was released showing police officers posing alongside the main suspect in the murder.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has fuelled that debate by alluding to what is known here as the "deep state" twice since Mr Dink's killing.

He has talked of dark structures operating within the state but outside the law in the belief they are protecting the country.



Is this the plot unravelling or the positioning of a stool-pigeon?