Reporters without borders (press release), France
March 19 2007
Murdered journalist’s family want proof of government’s intention to
punish all those responsible
Reporters Without Borders today backed lawyers for the family of
Hrant Dink, the murdered Turkish-Armenian editor of the weekly
newspaper Agos, in a call to the Istanbul chief prosecutor to punish
all those who failed to act on information that could have prevented
Dink’s murder in Istanbul on 19 January.
Lawyer Fethiye Cetin said in the 15 March request that at least 17
messages warning of a plot to kill the journalist had been sent to
Istanbul police by police in Trabzon, where many of the suspects
live. The lawyers also demanded that all legal procedures in the case
be transferred to an Istanbul court.
Reporters Without Borders said it expected `action against police who
displayed disgraceful negligence in the murder of Dink and some of
whom showed sympathy for the suspected killer. However, the
authorities have hardly been convincing in their condemnation of the
murder.’
Cetin and his colleague Bahri Bayram Belen told the media that the
murder could not have been an isolated act only involving people in
the Pelitli neighbourhood of Trabzon. The numerous attacks by
ultra-nationalist groups since a bomb blast at a McDonald’s
restaurant in Trabzon in 2004 have continued since Dink’s death, they
said, suggesting that a `terrorist group threatening the democratic
rule of law’ was responsible.
Cetin demanded to know what had become of official legal action begun
against police in Samsun, the town where the suspected killer, Ogün
Samast, was arrested and where police officers had taken `souvenir’
photos of themselves with Samast.
Reporters Without Borders said the government had shown `little
evidence of its intention to put an end to ultra-nationalist
violence’ and `repeated threats to journalists and intellectuals
discussing the 1915 massacres of Armenians and the Kurdish question.’
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