Dink’s Funeral with the Participation of Thousands of Turks
Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey
Jan 23 2007
Tuesday , 23 January 2007
JTW – Murdered journalist Hirant Dink’s funeral ceremony has been
fulfilled with the participation of more than 100.000 people.
With thousands of people marching slowly behind the black hearse
carrying murdered journalist Hirant Dink’s coffin, the funeral was
firstly brought to the building of Agos newspaper for which Dink
worked as an editor.
First ceremony for ethnically Armenian journalist took place in front
of editorial office of his newspaper. People making 8 km-long cortege
walked without shouting slogans and only Armenian melodies wafted.
People on the way of cortege threw flowers from their windows. People
in the cortege carried signs on which it is written "We are all
Armenians" and "We are all Hrants" in Turkish, Armenian and in English.
Among who were participated in the funeral, there were Armenian Deputy
Foreign Minister Arman Kirakossian, General Secretary of the Black
Sea Economic Cooperation Foundation, Karen Mirzoyan and Patriarch
Hajak Barsamian, the Orthodox leader of Armenians living on the East
Coast of the US. The Turkish authority was also represented by Deputy
Prime Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin and Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu.
Hrant Dink, the Turkish-Armenian journalist, had been killed yesterday
on 19 January and on Saturday evening, January 20, the lead suspect
for Hrant Dink’s assassination, Ogun Samast, had been captured with
the murder weapon on him.