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HRANT DINK SHOT DEAD IN BOLIS
Jan 19 (Reuters) – A Turkish-Armenian editor, who had been convicted
of insulting Turkey’s identity over his comments on Armenians, was
shot dead outside his newspaper office in Istanbul on Friday.
Turkish broadcaster NTV said Hrant Dink, a controversial writer and
journalist, was shot by an unknown assailant as he left his newspaper
Agos around 1300 GMT in central Istanbul.
A colleague of Dink’s confirmed he had died. Police released no
further information.
Last year Turkey’s appeals court upheld a six-month suspended jail
sentence against Dink, a Turkish-born Armenian, for referring in an
article to an Armenian nationalist idea of ethnic purity without
Turkish blood.
The court said the comments went against an article of Turkey’s
revised penal code which lets prosecutors pursue cases against
writers and scholars for "insulting Turkish identity."
Dink was one of dozens of writers who have been charged under laws
against insulting Turkishness, particularly over issues related to an
alleged genocide of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War One.
Turkey denies genocide was committed.
The government has promised to revise the much criticised article of
the penal code. The European Union has repeatedly called on Ankara to
change the law.
Dink was editor-in-of chief of the bilingual Turkish and Armenian
weekly Agos.
www dot bbc dot co dot uk – The Turkish-Armenian writer and journalist Hrant
Dink has been shot dead, Turkish media report. Dink, the high-profile editor
of newspaper Agos, was shot three times outside its offices in Istanbul, the
paper said. Dink was one of the writers who had been prosecuted under
Turkey’s strict laws against "insulting Turkishness".
He was given a six-month suspended sentence in October 2005 after writing
about the Armenian "genocide" of 1915.
Hundreds of thousands of Armenians died at the time, in what many Armenians
say was a systematic massacre at the hands of the Ottoman Turks.
Turkey denies any genocide, saying the deaths were a part of World War I.
Dink, 53, had received threats from nationalists who viewed him as a
traitor, the Associated Press news agency reported.
He was a public figure in Turkey – one o f its most prominent Armenian
voices.
He once gave an interview with the Associated Press in which he cried while
describing the hatred some Turks had for him, saying he could not stay in a
country where he was unwanted.
Bolis – Turkey (CNN) – A prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist who spoke out
against the killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire early last century
was shot to death Friday, according to CNN Turk.
Hrant Dink, 53, editor of the Armenian-Turkish language weekly Agos
newspaper, was shot dead in front of the Istanbul publication as he was leaving.
Authorities are looking into a lead that he was shot four times by a young
man who appeared to be 18 or 19 years old.
Described as a "well-known commentator on Armenian affairs," Dink has faced
a number of cases in connection with "insulting" the Turkish state for his
writings.
"Some of the trial hearings have been marred by violent scenes inside and
outside the courtrooms, instigated by nationalist activists calling for Dink to
be punished," said a profile on the Web site of Pen American Center — the
writers’ group that promotes free expression.
Agos, an Armenian-Turkish language weekly, was established in 1996.
Pen’s profile said that in 2005, Dink "had been charged for an article
published in Agos in which he discussed the impact on present day Armenian diaspora
of the killings of hundreds of thousands of Armenians by the Ottoman army in
1915-17."
This is a hot-button issue in the region, Pen notes.
Armenians and other countries regard the killings of Armenians in the early
20th century as a a genocide, a claim rejected by the Turkish government,
which says Armenians and Turks were killed in civil warfare.
Dink was one of the most prominent voices of Turkey’s shrinking Armenian
community.
A Turkish citizen of Armenian descent, he had received threats from
nationalists, who viewed him as a traitor.
In an earlier interview with The Associated Press, Dink had cried as he
talked about some of his fellow countrymen’s hatred for him, saying he could not
stay in a country where he was unwanted.
Private NTV television said police were searching for the suspected
murderer, believed to be a teenager wearing a white hat and a denim jacket, but the
identity and motivation of the shooter were unknown, AP reported.
Dink’s body could be seen covered with a white sheet in front of the
newspaper’s entrance. NTV said four empty shell casings were found on the ground and
that he was killed by two bullets to the head.
Fehmi Koru, a columnist at the Yeni Safak newspaper, said the murder was
aimed at destabilising Turkey.
"His loss is the loss of Turkey," Koru said.