TURKEY: THOUSANDS EXPECTED TO PAY HOMAGE TO SLAIN ARMENIAN JOURNALIST
AKI, Italy
Jan 22 2007
Istanbul, 22 Jan. (AKI) – Thousands of people are expected to turn
out for a march in Istanbul on Tuesday to commemorate promiment
Armenian Turkish journalist Hrant Dink who was shot dead in the city
last Friday. Organisers have asked participants not to chant slogans,
wave flags or carry placards along the march’s eight-kilometre route
from the downtown offices of Dink’s Agos newspaper to an Armenian
Orthodox Church in the city’s Kumkapi district, where his funeral will
be held. The organisers said that in compliance with what they believe
would have been Dink’s desire, marchers would wallk under one slogan:
"We are all Hrant Dink, We are all Armenian".
Turkish foreign minister and deputy premier Abdullah Gul as well as
several EU officials are scheduled to attend the funeral. The murder
of Dink, a moderate proponent of the rights of Turkey’s Armenian
ethnic minority has raised EU concerns on freedom of speech in Turkey.
Police have arrested a 17-year-old boy in connection with the shooting
of Dink who was hit by four bullets in front of the offices of Agos,
the bilingual Armenian-Turkish newspaper he edited on Friday afternoon.
The suspect Ogun Samast, a native of the conservative city of Trabzon
was picked up on a bus 32 hours after the murder after his father
recognised him from TV images and notified the police.
Civil society organisations have pointed the finger at Turkey’s
ultra-nationalists blaming them for the sentiments of hate whipped
up against Dink. On numerous occasions the journalist – who had been
convicted on charges of breaking laws prohibiting the mention of
the early 20th Century massacre of Armenians under the Ottomans –
said he had received death threats from people who accused him of
being a traitor.
Police are also quetioning a friend of Samast, Yasin Hayal who was
involved in a 1994 bomb attack at a McDonald’s restaurant in which
six people were injured.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress