International Herald Tribune, France
Jan 20 2007
Turkish journalist honored as authorities search for his killer
The Associated PressPublished: January 20, 2007
ISTANBUL, Turkey: The killing of prominent journalist Hrant Dink put
Turkey in a mood of shock, shame and self-reflection – and prompted
an emotional outpouring of support for a man whose life was largely
defined by battles with those who saw him as an enemy of his nation.
Dink, an ethnic Armenian newspaper editor who faced numerous trials
and venomous insults for saying the killing of Armenians by Turks in
the last century was genocide, was shot several times Friday
afternoon by an unidentified assassin. He died a violent and public
death in broad daylight on the sidewalk outside his paper’s office on
a busy street in Istanbul.
Though the motives for the killing remained unclear, most Turks
assumed Dink was targeted and killed for his comments on genocide,
which nationalists said were insults to Turkey’s honor and
threatening to its unity.
Dink, a Turkish citizen of Armenian descent, was no stranger to
hatred directed against him.
"Fascists were attacking me with racist curses," he wrote in his last
newspaper column, dated Jan. 10. "They were humiliating me with
banners. Hundreds of threats via e-mail, phone calls and letters were
pouring down and they were increasing day by day in number … I was
in the most embarrassing situation a man can experience."
He said he considered leaving Turkey, but then, "I know myself.
After three days abroad, I miss my country. … We would stay and
resist."
Turkey’s media was unanimous in claiming Dink as one of its own after
the slaying – an irony for a man who constantly struggled to shake
himself of the label of traitor.
"Hrant Dink is Turkey," ran the headline in the daily Milliyet.
"The greatest betrayal," Sabah newspaper said of the killing.
"Armenian journalist Dink slain, Turkey appalled," Zaman’s English
paper said.
Dink was critical of both Turkey and of the Armenian Diaspora’s harsh
stance against it. He said he would stay here in the hopes that cases
he opened at the European Court of Human Rights would be resolved in
his favor, and do something to improve his country.
"When a positive verdict is declared, I will surely be happier, and
then this will mean that I will never have to leave my country," he
wrote.
Turkey’s relationship with its Armenian minority has long been
haunted by memories of a brutal past. Much of Turkey’s
once-influential Armenian population was killed or driven out
beginning around 1915 in what an increasing number of countries are
recognizing as the first genocide of the 20th century.
Turks vehemently deny that their ancestors committed genocide,
however, and saying so is tantamount to treason here.
Photographs of the man believed to be Dink’s killer were broadcast on
television Saturday along with pleas to help track him down. The man
appeared to be thin, in his late teens or early 20s, with an angular
face and a wisp of a mustache. One photograph captured him running,
tucking a gun into his waistband.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to track the killer down
and to expose the motives and planners behind the crime.
"The bullets aimed at Hrant Dink were shot into all of us," he said
Saturday in one of several televised comments on the killing.
Public sentiment seemed to be one of disgust at the crime, and many
newspapers adopted an ashamed and frustrated tone in talking of the
killing.
"In this era, Turkey is a country where the Rev. Andrea Santoro is
murdered!" wrote columnist Taha Akyol in Milliyet, referring to the
killing last year of a Catholic priest as he prayed in his church in
Turkey. "It’s a country where the moderate Armenian journalist Hrant
Dink is murdered! It’s a country that puts writers on trial!"
"Assassination? What a cold, distant word," wrote Perihan Magden in
an emotional column addressed to Dink in Radikal. "They sacrificed
you, good man."
Ismet Berkan, editor-in-chief of Radikal, complained of a "murderous
nationalist atmosphere" that led to Dink’s death.
"We created this atmosphere knowingly, step-by-step," he wrote. "The
most painful thing is this: to know that Hrant is neither the first
nor the last."
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said Turkey was
the eighth deadliest country in the world for journalists. Turkey’s
Zaman newspaper said 62 journalists had been "assassinated" in the
nation’s 84-year history.
Dink’s funeral is scheduled for Tuesday at the Meryem Ana church,
after which he will be buried at the Balikli Armenian cemetery in
Istanbul.