Hrant Dink (1954-1915)
By Khatchig Mouradian
The Armenian Weekly
January 20, 2007
The above date, 1915, is not a typographical mistake.
On Saturday, April 24, 1915, Ottoman-Turkish soldiers arrested
about 200 Armenian intellectuals~Wwriters, journalists and community
leaders~Win Istanbul, exiling them to the interior of the Ottoman
Empire where they would be killed. The plan was to behead the Armenian
community by annihilating its leadership and then to cleanse the
entire population. The day of the arrests marks the beginning of the
Armenian Genocide.
On Friday, Jan. 19, 2007, also in Istanbul, another prominent Armenian
intellectual, Hrant Dink, was assassinated in front of the editorial
offices of his Armenian weekly newspaper Agos.
Hrant Dink is a victim of the Armenian Genocide.
And the Armenian Genocide continues.
Not only because denial is the last phase of Genocide.
But because the killing continues.
It was NOT an individual who killed Hrant Dink. So while Turkish
authorities are looking for a killer out loose in the streets, the
real killer is the Turkish state, which continues to foster a culture
of violence, assassinations, killings, oppression, and denial. The
killer is the Turkish state, which indoctrinates its citizens from
an early age that the Armenian Genocide is a myth, an agenda, pushed
by the West to destroy Turkey.
"A bullet has been fired at democracy and freedom of expression,"
said Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Yes, the bullet
was Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, under which Dink was
prosecuted twice.
The person who pulled the trigger was executing the will of the Turkish
state. Like his Prime Minister, government, army and the so-called
~SDeep-State,~T he wanted to make the world believe that there was no
Armenian Genocide. Like Talaat Pasha, he believed that the Armenian
question could be solved by killing those who made demands.
We shall remember you, Hrant, together with Varoujan, Siamanto,
Zohrab and all the victims of the Armenian Genocide.