ACCORDING TO MILLIYET, NO NECESSARY MEASURES ARE TAKEN FOR SECURITY OF AGOS AND OTHER ARMENIAN INSTITUTIONS OF ISTANBUL

Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
Mar 02 2007

ISTANBUL, MARCH 2, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. The Security
Service of Istanbul did not take necessary measures in the direction of
defending the Agos editorial office and other Armenian institutions. As
Marmara states, the Turkish Milliyet newspaper wrote about it. The
newspaper correspondent states that after adoption of the Armenian
resolution by the Parliament of France, Archbishop Mesrop Mutafian,
the Armenian Patriarch of Turkey addressed to the Governor’s Office,
demanding to take under protection a number of Armenian institutions,
and that responding this appeal, the Istanbul Governor’s Office
prepared a 7-page list of institutions of primary importance of
protection. The Agos editorial office was the 12th in this list. In
spite of it, no measures of security were taken in front of the
editorial office after Hrant Dink’s murder. On the next day after
Dink’s murder the Istanbul Governor and security head explained it
during the press conference by the fact that Hrant Dink did not ask for
protection. "18 editors are at the present moment under the protection
of our service, but Hrant Dink did not ask us for such protection,"
Istanbul Governor Guler said at the press conference. Milliyet presents
October 12, 2006 decree of the security service deputy head by which
it was demanded to set the Armenian Patriarch’s appeal going. But in
spite of that decree, no measures of security were taken in front of
the Agos editorial office, and criminal Ogust Samast was not noticed
by video cameras placed by the Security Service, and it would remain
unknown if it was not accidently shot by the camera of an institution
placed in the neighbouring street. The newspaper reminds on this
occasion that no measures of security were taken even after the issue
when the Police was informed about preparing an attempt at Hrant Dink.