Turkish police posed for picture with killer of Armenian journalist
By Peter Popham
The Indpendent/UK
Published: 03 February 2007
Less than a fortnight after huge crowds thronged the streets of
Istanbul at the funeral of the murdered Armenian journalist Hrant
Dink, chanting, "We are all Armenian," Turkey yesterday showed
another, more sinister face.
Turkish newspapers and television news programmes carried images of
the man accused of shooting Mr Dink posing proudly behind a Turkish
flag with police officers. In the background was a poster bearing the
words of Mustafa Kemal Attaturk: "The nation’s land is sacred. It
cannot be left to fate."
The video caused shock and consternation as commentators warned it was
another sign of the growing power of Turkish ultra- nationalism as the
nation gears up for parliamentary and presidential elections later
this year.
Ismet Berkan, editor of the liberal newspaper Radikal, said that the
release of the video was like killing Mr Dink a second time. It
proved, he claimed, "that the murderer and his associates are not
alone, that their supporters … have penetrated all segments of the
state."
Hrant Dink was the founder and editor of Agos, the weekly newspaper of
Turkey’s small and beleaguered Armenian population. Since launching
the paper he had fought tirelessly to improve relations between Turkey
and Armenia, which have been in deep freeze since the extermination of
Armenia’s large community in Anatolia between 1915 and 1917, the first
genocide of the 20th century.
Mr Dink told Turks to face the facts about the genocide, but his great
goal was reconciliation. When France passed a law making denial of the
Armenian genocide a criminal offence, for example, Mr Dink declared
that he would go to France to deny it himself. He wrote that Armenians
should "clear their blood of hatred for the Turks".
Mangled in reiteration by Turkish nationalist websites, these words
became "Turkish blood is dirty" – sparking 17-year-old Ogun Samast to
travel to Istanbul from the Black Sea city of Trabzon and shoot Mr
Dink outside his office. Seven others, all from Trabzon, have now
been arrested for involvement.
A police spokesperson said an investigation into the video footage and
its leaking was under way.