AFTER HRANT DINK…

Tert.am
Sept 16 2009
Armenia

Our car went over the curb and stopped in the wrong place. "Give
me a piece of paper," Chief Editor of Turkish newspaper Agos Aris
Nalci said, then wrote the name of the press and his phone number
on it. "This is a guarantee for you not to have any problems with
the police."

The Istanbul police and the rest of the world learned about Agos in
2007. On January 19, 2007, a few meters away from the editorial office,
a 17-year-old Turkish boy, Ogun Samast, fired at the paper’s chief
editor and public activist of Armenian descent Hrant Dink. Protest
actions involving thousands of people followed immediately
afterwards. In Istanbul, people came out to the streets, chanting
"We are all Hrant Dink. We are all Armenians." In Yerevan: "One more
victim was added to the 1.5 million victims of the Armenian Genocide."

The 29-year-old current chief editor Aris doesn’t find his position
too overloaded. In the editorial department, an absolute working
atmosphere prevails; except for the main entrance, there are no closed
doors. In all the rooms and corridors, there are photos of Dink, there
are comics where he is pictured as a peace dove, and a portrait which
was obviously done in a hurry. The wall behind the chief editor’s
chair is covered with a needlework with Armenian letters.

Agos has gathered leading and active representatives of the Turkish
community under its roof. Most of the staff of 15 people are local
Armenians, who publish a newspaper in Turkish with a supplementary
Armenian section.

>>From time to time, the Armenian community and diocese complain
about the paper being published in Turkish. However, after Dink’s
death the number of these occurrences have become almost nil.

Dink’s position was not unequivocally accepted in Armenia either. Here,
for example, issues rose with Dink being granted airtime on public
TV. Experienced advocate and publisher Dink, who was struggling
for public freedoms and who raised the Armenian and Kurdish issue
many times in Turkey, was particularly against laws in France and
Belgium under which people must be prosecuted for denying the fact
of Armenian Genocide.

After Dink’s death, the newspaper started to sell 60,000
copies. Currently, the weekly sells 9,000-10,000 copies, very often due
to the fact that Turkish nationalist retailers conceal the publication
and don’t display it on newsstands. Though Agos’s circulation is small
compared to some Turkish newspapers (which sell 630,000 copies), it
is still a leader in the Turkish public in breaking taboos. Unlike
other Armenian newspapers, Agos uses the term "Armenian Genocide,"
and raises Kurdish and gender equality issues.

The piece of paper placed inside the car’s window that was parked
illegally solved all the issues which might have seemed impossible
in this megalopolis, and the vendor of the shop whose entrance was
blocked with our car even invited us to tea. There was a big poster
of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in military uniform on the wall of his shop.