HRANT DINK INTENDS TO APPEAL TO EUROPEAN COURT ON HUMAN RIGHTS

ARMINFO News Agency
September 19, 2006 Tuesday

Hrant Dink, Editor-in-Chief of the Turkey-based Armenian newspaper
"Agos", is going to appeal to the European Court on Human Rights.

He told journalists today that his trial for insulting the Turks’
national mentality has gone through all Turkish courts. "The other
day the Turkish Cassation Court approved the First Instance Court’s
verdict to sentence me to six months in prison", he said. As soon as
he gets the official verdict of the Cassation Court he will ask the
European Court to protect his rights. This may take several months.

He said that he intends to struggle for his freedom in Turkey
till the end, but if he is still convicted he will have to leave
his motherland. He said that Turkey not only denies the Armenian
Genocide, but also suggests an absurd version of the historical facts:
it says that it was the Armenians and not Turks who perpetrated the
massacre. Modern Turkey undergoes the process of democratic reforms
and, particularly, the question of the Genocide.

Dink said that his business is not to condemn the Turkish viewpoint
of the Genocide, but to submit the subject for a wider discussion.

"The Turkish authorities defend their viewpoint and their freedom of
speech everywhere, particularly, in France, who wants to adopt a law
stipulating that a person denying the Armenian Genocide in France
should be prosecuted, but, in fact, are not willing to provide this
freedom in their own country. It is inadmissible and needs revision",
Dink said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress