Journalists convicted of ‘insulting Turkishness’

By Vincent Boland in Ankara

Published: October 11 2007 18:05 | Last updated: October 11 2007 18:05

A court in Istanbul on Thursday handed down a one-year suspended jail
sentence to two Turkish-Armenian journalists for "insulting
Turkishness" a day after a US congressional decision to acknowledge
the mass killings of Ottoman Armenians as genocide.

Arat Dink and Serkis Seropyan, editors at the bilingual
Turkish-Armenian weekly newspaper Agos, were convicted for articles
published referring to the massacres as genocide. They were convicted
under article 301 of Turkey’s penal code, which makes it a crime to
criticise state institutions or challenge the official version of
sensitive issues in Turkish history, including the Armenian massacres.

Mr Dink is the son of Hrant Dink, the founder of Agos, who was
murdered in Istanbul in January. A teenaged boy, who has admitted that
he was the gunman, and 17 others are on trial for the murder, which
sparked an unprecedented episode of soul-searching among Turks about
their nation’s responsibility for the plight of the Armenians.

Hrant Dink was appealing at the time of his murder against a
conviction for the same offence with which his son was charged. Aram
Dink and Mr Seropyan are expected to appeal against Thursday’s
sentences.

The verdict highlights the inconsistencies in Turkey’s attitude
towards the accusation of genocide against the Armenians as the
Ottoman empire collapsed between 1915 and 1917. The government on
Thursday strongly criticised the decision by the foreign affairs
committee of the US House of Representatives to adopt a resolution
declaring the massacres to be genocide but was itself criticised by
some commentators for silencing debate on the issue inside Turkey.

The Turkish Human Rights Association described the approach as a
"discriminatory mentality" that "turns intolerance into a state
policy".

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

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