TWO TURKS FINED FOR INSULTING, THREATENING ARMENIAN PATRIARCH

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
March 10 2007

A Turkish court fined two men for insulting and threatening Patriarch
Mesrob II, the spiritual leader of the Turkey’s small Armenian
community yesterday.

Gokmen Akman was given a fine of YTL 1,287 ($910 dollars) on charges
of both insulting and threatening the patriarch, while Hasan Ezer
was sentenced to pay YTL 77 Turkish ($55) for just insulting Mesrob
II, the Anatolia news agency reported. According to the indictment,
the two men sent e-mails to the patriarch in October 2004 which read
"We will finish you off" and "We will drive you crazy."

Turkey’s 80,000-strong Armenian community, which lives mainly in
Ýstanbul, generally keeps a low profile for fear of becoming a
target for ultra-nationalists in light of the alleged World War I
massacres of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire. Armenians describe the
1915-1918 massacres as genocide, a label that the Republic of Turkey
— the Ottoman Empire’s successor — fiercely rejects. In January,
ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, criticized for his views on
the alleged Armenian massacres, was shot dead outside his office in
a murder which prosecutors believe was the work of ultra-nationalists.

Since then, anxiety has engulfed the Armenian community, and in
recent interviews Mesrob II has said that his office had been
receiving threats.

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