Reuters, UK
Jan 23 2007
50,000 Turks mourn slain Armenian editor
Tue Jan 23, 2007 7:55am ET
By Daren Butler
ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Some 50,000 people filed silently through
Istanbul on Tuesday behind the coffin of slain Turkish Armenian
editor Hrant Dink, whose killing has stirred debate about influence
of hardline nationalism in the country.
>>From early morning, tearful mourners, many holding identical
black-and-white signs reading "We are all Hrant Dink" and "We are all
Armenians", gathered outside the Agos newspaper office where Dink was
shot three times in broad daylight last Friday.
White doves were released into the air as somber music played. Much
of downtown Istanbul was closed to traffic.
Ogun Samast, 17, has confessed to killing Dink for "insulting" Turks.
A nationalist militant friend of Samast has admitting to police that
he incited Samast to kill Dink.
"We are seeing off our brother with a silent walk, without slogans
and without asking how a baby became a murderer," Dink’s widow Rakel,
surrounded by her three children, told mourners.
Amid tight security, thousands of people followed the black hearse
with the coffin on its 8-km (5 mile) journey across Istanbul and the
Golden Horn waterway to an Armenian church.
Cabinet ministers, foreign diplomats, Armenian government officials
and members of both Turkey’s 60,000-strong Armenian community and the
global Armenian diaspora joined the service.
The killing has sparked concerns about Turkey’s attitude to its
minorities, not least among the diaspora which is especially
influential in France and the United States.
The European Union, which Turkey hopes to join, wants Ankara to
improve the rights of its ethnic and religious minorities.
"This is not an exceptional case but the result of a poisonous
nationalist atmosphere. Turkey’s credibility abroad has hit rock
bottom," said Turkish businessman Vural Oger.
Dink, like dozens of other intellectuals, had been prosecuted for his
views on the massacres of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915 — a
very sensitive issue in Turkey.
Turkish media criticized the prime minister, president and top army
generals for staying away from Dink’s funeral.
"If the president, the prime minister and chief of the general staff
came to the funeral, I would be hopeful the state has given up on a
lynching culture and started to (practice) self-criticism," said
liberal columnist Cengiz Candar.
NATIONALISM
Like Nobel Literature laureate Orhan Pamuk, Dink had come under fire
from nationalists, including some politicians. They felt his view
that Turkey should face up to its role in the massacres of Armenians
threatened national security and honor.
Turkey has become a more open, liberal country in recent years,
helped by a swathe of EU-linked reforms.
But the murder of the editor, who had sought reconciliation between
Muslim Turks and Christian Armenians, was a reminder of darker fears
that still haunt this predominantly Muslim country.
Turks are taught from early childhood to revere their country, its
flag and its founder Kemal Ataturk — but this heavy emphasis on the
nation can lead to intolerance for outsiders and has fueled various
militant groups over the decades ready to use violence against
perceived threats.
Newspapers said the murder may lead to warming ties between Turkey
and the tiny ex-Soviet republic of Armenia. Turkey broke off
diplomatic ties in 1993 over a territorial row.
Turkey denies claims that 1.5 million Armenians died in a systematic
genocide at Ottoman Turkish hands, saying large numbers of both
Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks perished.
But, to Ankara’s dismay, many foreign parliaments have passed laws
recognizing the massacres as genocide.
Dink’s murder has increased pressure on the pro-EU government to
scrap a controversial law used against Dink and others to curb
freedom of expression.