Istanbul funeral for slain editor

Journal of Turkish Weekly
Jan 24 2007

Wednesday , 24 January 2007

Thousands of people have gathered outside the Istanbul offices of
murdered Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink ahead of his funeral.

The newspaper editor, 52, was gunned down in the Turkish city on
Friday.

Mourners, dressed in black and carrying signs reading "We are all
Armenians", crammed the square outside the offices.

Thousands are expected to take part in the funeral march along a
five-mile (8km) route to an Armenian Orthodox Church amid tight
security.

Turkish prosecutors said the teenager suspected of shooting dead Dink
had confessed.

Ogun Samast was arrested after he was identified by his father from
CCTV images taken near the murder scene.

He was held in the Black Sea port of Samsun together with six other
suspects, before being returned to Istanbul for further questioning.

One of the suspects was named as Yasin Hayal, a friend of Samast,
who has spent 11 months in jail for a 2004 bomb attack outside a
McDonald’s restaurant in Trabzon.

Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper reported on Monday that during police
questioning Hayal said that he had given Samast, aged 16 or 17,
the gun and the money.

Investigators say that so far they have found no links between Samast
and any known political group.

Dink was shot dead in broad daylight outside the office of his
newspaper, Agos. ———High security

Turkish officials have said the funeral will be held amid high police
presence.

"We have cancelled all leave for police and we will have an adequate
force in place," Istanbul governor Muammer Guler said on Monday.

Armenian government officials and religious leaders as well as some
members of Turkey’s Armenian Diaspora have been invited to attend
the funeral.

Officials from Yerevan will make the trip despite the fact that
Armenia and Turkey have no diplomatic relations.

Dink will be buried at Istanbul’s Armenian cemetery after a ceremony
a religious service and a ceremony outside the Agos office.

Dink’s murder shocked Turkey and Prime Minister Erdogan vowed
repeatedly that his killer would be caught.

Journalists and politicians in Turkey have expressed outrage at the
killing, which many described as a political assassination, while
the US, EU, France, and several human rights groups also voiced shock
and condemnation.

Dink had received multiple death threats from nationalists because
of his views on the mass killings of Armenians during the final days
of the Ottoman Empire.

He was convicted in October 2005 for writing about the Armenian
"genocide" in 1915, a claim denied by the authorities in Ankara.

The issue is a sensitive subject in both Armenia and Turkey. Many
Armenians have campaigned for the killings to be recognised
internationally as genocide.

Turkey admits that many Armenians were killed but it denies any
genocide, saying the deaths happened during widespread fighting in
World War I.

Tehran News 24 January 2007