By releasing from the court hall all the five gendarmerie officers being tried over the 2007 assassination of the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, Turkish authorities proved they were trying to the win the favor of the nationalists, expert in Turkey Mushegh Khudaverdyan told Panorama.am, pointing out all the members of the six former gendarmerie intelligence officers complicit in the 2007 assassination of the journalist represented the nationalist party,
“Turkey’s Justice and Development party has recently formed a coalition with the the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) which is regularly organizing rallies against the national minorities living in Turkey, including Armenians. Now, the authorities are trying to win the favor of nationalists given the ongoing worries to maintain the power in the highest echelons of the leadership,” Khudaverdyan noted.
In the expert’s words, the permissiveness of the Turkish courts has even further reinforced the atmosphere of fear dominant in the national minorities residing in the country.
“Seline Doghan and Garo Paylan, MPs of Armenian origin at Turkish Mejlis have repeatedly spoken up, pointing to the negative attitude toward minorities in Turkey persisted throughout its history,” the expert said, adding those pressures gave birth to the Kurdish rebel forces in the 1970s struggling to draw the attention of Turkish authorities to end repressions and even resorted to arms to that end.