HRANT DINK NAMED ON OF THE WORLD PRESS FREEDOM HEROES

armradio.am
12.12.2007 14:51

The International Press Institute named Hrant Dink, the murdered
editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, as
one of its World Press Freedom Heroes, the Turkish Daily News reports.

"Hrant Dink’s nomination as our 52nd World Press Freedom Hero is a
tribute to his bravery, but also an acknowledgement of his significant
contribution to freedom of expression and press freedom in Turkey,"
IPI Director Johann Fritz said.

Dink, a well-known Turkish-Armenian editor and columnist, was
murdered in Istanbul on January 19, 2007. He was shot twice in the
head and once in the neck by a nationalist outside the offices of
the newspaper he set up in 1996. He had run into trouble with the
law for articles about the 1915-17 massacres of Armenians under the
Ottoman Empire during World War I and received a six-month suspended
sentence in July 2006 for denigrating "Turkishness." Dink was also
facing prosecution for a second article condemning his conviction,
and had received death threats.

Dink was one of at least 91 journalists murdered so far in 2007,
IPI said.

"In most cases, these murders occurred with impunity. We call on
governments around the world to ensure that those responsible for
these heinous crimes are brought to justice," Fritz said.