IMPORTANCE OF TOPIC DISCUSSED IS APPARENT

Yerkir.am
February 09, 2007

Statement by Armen Rustamian at the Parliamentary Assembly of the
Council of Europe on the threats to the lives of journalists and
freedom of speech.

Mr. Chairman, dear colleagues,

The significance and urgency of the issue under discussion is obvious.

Persecution and even murder of journalists is an attack against the
forth power, an attempt to eliminate freedom of speech and freedom of
the media. Of course, it is necessary to strictly and timely denounce
such acts in order to express our firm position, our joint protest
against such phenomena.

However, this is not sufficient if we want to prevent such crimes
from recurring and, most importantly, if we want to declare to all
criminals that justice will always win and such phenomena will be
eradicated through our joint efforts. In order to do this, we not only
need to denounce the committed crime, but also to reveal its causes
and motives that have directly or indirectly contributed to this crime.

We also need to denounce the existing pre-requisites and the current
political and psychological atmosphere that resulted in resurgence
of such a wave of intolerance.

Only in this case will the response be adequate and will serve to
prevent such acts, and only in this case will the society overcome
the challenge it is facing becoming more united, more ready to counter
such attacks against universal values.

This is the kind of problem we are facing in the case of the cruel
murder of the ethnic Armenian Turkish citizen, the famous journalist
and public leader Hrant Dink.

I want to stress this on purpose since in the statements made
by officials from the Council of Europe or the documents adopted
by us we purposefully tend to silence the facts that are directly
connected with the motives of this crime (even the criminal himself
has said that) as if we are afraid to indult Turkey if we talk about
the motives. Dink was not afraid of telling the truth even though he
knew he would have to pay a high price for that.

Today people in Turkey go to the streets carrying posters that say
"We are all Armenians" assuming that this was one of the reasons of
his murder.

Meanwhile, in our documents we do not even mention that Dink
was Armenian. In order to have a full picture of the crime it is
necessary to present openly the motives behind it and the atmosphere
that unfortunately still exists in Turkey.

The motives have to do with Dink’s approaches and beliefs that he
used to defend publicly. He was a supported of true Europeanization
of Turkey, substantive and not merely formal Europeanization. He
believed recognition of the Armenian Genocide committed by Turkey in
the Ottoman Empire would be one of the most important criteria for such
a transformation of his country. This is what they could not forgive
him and they used a very convenient tool for such cases – Article 301.

Application of this article against different dissidents cannot
but intensify the atmosphere of intolerance against the so-called
"anti-Turkish" elements. There will always be some "patriots" who
will be ready to punish the " traitors". The only difference is that
in the civilized world the state punishes such people through the
courts, while some "patriots" can take up this punitive function by
themselves. As a result we see that those struggling for recognition of
the Armenian Genocide in Turkey struggle for this cause in a peaceful
and civilized manner while those who deny the Genocide resort to the
punitive mechanisms of the state or simply shoot.

Hrant Dink was right to believe that recognition of the Armenian
Genocide would be one of the most significant successes on Turkey’s
way to membership in the EU. Turkey should do what Germany once did in
respect to the Holocaust managing to reject Hitler’s fascism. Turkey
should find the courage to reject the Ottoman Empire’s regime and
become a full member of the European family together with Germany
and other states. Hrant Dink believed in this.