Thousands will gather to commemorate Dink

Thousands will gather to commemorate Dink

armradio.am
19.01.2008 11:56

A ceremony is to be held in Istanbul to mark one year since the murder
of the ethnic Armenian journalist, Hrant Dink. Hrant Dink campaigned
for his country to confront one of the darkest chapters of its past:
the mass killing of Ottoman Armenians in 1915.

He was convicted of "insulting Turkishness," which many say labelled
him a traitor to extreme nationalists. Despite EU pressure on Turkey to
change or abolish the law under which he was convicted, Article 301
still remains.

Thousands of people are expected to gather close to the spot where
Hrant Dink was murdered. It was 14:57 local time, and at that time
exactly, one year on, the crowd will mark a moment of silence.

At a short ceremony led by Hrant Dink’s close friends and family, they
will remember a man who dared to speak out about one of the most
sensitive issues there is here – the killing of hundreds of thousands
of Ottoman Armenians. Modern-day Turkey denies it was genocide. Hrant
Dink’s stance made him a hate figure for extreme nationalists.

But his friends believe it was his conviction under the controversial
Article 301 – for "insulting Turkishness" – that singled him out as a
target.