Kathimerini, Greece
Oct 8 2005
Armenian journalist convicted for `insulting Turkish identity’
ISTANBUL (AFP) – An Istanbul court yesterday sentenced
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink to a six-month suspended
sentence for `insult to the Turkish national identity,’ his lawyer
told AFP. Both the lawyer, Fethiye Cetin, and Dink said they would
appeal the decision. Dink, editor of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian
weekly Agos, was on trial for a February 2004 article calling on
Armenians to `turn to the new blood of independent Armenia, which
alone can free them of the burden of the diaspora.’ In the article,
which dealt with the collective memory of the Armenian massacres of
1915-1917 under the Ottoman Empire, Dink also called on Armenians to
symbolically reject `the adulterated part of their Turkish blood.’