PanARMENIAN.Net

Sisli Mayor accused of organization of Dink funeral with pro-Armenian slogans
23.02.2007 15:56 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The prosecutor’s office for Istanbul’s Sisli
district has launched an investigation into Sisli Mayor Mustafa
Sarigül and the committee that organized the funeral for journalist
Hrant Dink, the slain editor of the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, for
the slogans `We are all Armenians’, `We are all Hrant Dink’, according
to a report from Milliyet daily.

A reporter for a local daily in the northern city of Sinop, Mete
Cagdas, filed a complaint to the local prosecutor’s office in
Sinop. Cagdas’s application accused Sisli Mayor Mustafa Sarigül and
the funeral organizers of turning the atmosphere at the funeral into
one for a fallen "militant," a term used subjectively in this case to
discredit the legitimacy of the protests.

According to Milliyet’s report, the chief prosecutor’s office in Sinop
had no jurisdiction in the case and relayed the file to the Sisli
chief prosecutor’s office in late January. Sisli prosecutors launched
an investigation which might end up in a law suit against the
organizers or in dismissal. In either case, the Sisli office will have
to make a statement clarifying its opinion of the funeral slogans.

Hrant Dink was shot dead in Istanbul January 19. About 100 thousand
people, who were carrying slogans `We are all Armenians’, `We are all
Hrant Dink’, attended his funeral.