PRESS RELEASE
Armenian National Committee – San Francisco Bay Area
51 Commonwealth Avenue
San Francisco, California 94118
Phone: (415)387-3433
Fax: (415)751-0617
[email protected]
Februa ry 12, 2007
Contact: Matyous Senekerimian
Telephone: (650)504-1111
SAN FRANCISCO ELECTED OFFICIALS, HUMAN RIGHTS COMMUNITY CONDEMN DINK
ASSASSINATION
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – In response to the assassination of Armenian
newspaper editor Hrant Dink, San Francisco city officials and Bay Area
human rights organizations joined the Armenian Bay Area ANC in
condemning the murder and calling on the United States government to
reaffirm the Armenian Genocide.
"Sadly, Hrant Dink’s murder does not come as a surprise to us," said
Roxanne Makasdjian, chairwoman of the Bay Area ANC, at the press
conference on January 25th on the steps of San Francisco City Hall. "The
ultra-nationalist and authoritarian forces which have created this
atmosphere of fear, intolerance and hatred in Turkey, paved the way for
Dink’s assassination. These are the same forces which led to the
Armenian Genocide, and that currently fuel the government’s vast
campaign of denial of the Armenian Genocide."
Participating in the press conference were representatives from the
offices of California State Senator Carol Migden and San Francisco Mayor
Gavin Newsom, San Francisco City and County Board of Supervisors
President Aaron Peskin and Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, San Francisco City
Attorney Dennis Herrera, representatives from the city’s Human Rights
Commission, Amnesty International, The Genocide Education Project, the
Holocaust Center of Northern California, and the San Francisco Bay Area
Darfur Coalition, and San Francisco Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman.
"The United States State Department is speaking ironically with two
heads," said Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin. "On the one
hand, they are once again working to prevent the United States Congress
from acknowledging the genocide of over a million and a half people…and
at the same time…they’re making these calls to virtually every
municipality in the United States of America to pass a local resolution
condemning holocaust denial in other countries."
Dink was shot dead in front of his "Agos" newspaper office on January
19. Thousands of people demonstrated in Istanbul for days following the
tragedy chanting "we are all Hrant Dink we are all Armenians," and over
100,000 mourners marched in Dink’s funeral procession. However, reports
of the police officers who arrested the youth alleged to have murdered
Dink posing for photographs and a national trend to purchase white caps
like the one the youth was wearing at the time of the murder also
emerged, pointing to the deep-seeded anti-Armenian ultra-nationalist
sentiment that pervades much of Turkish society to this day.
"It’s a tragedy that as a result of his death we’ve seen a voice
silenced that was trying to bring truth to those that want to ignore
history and deny what we all know occurred 90 years ago where 1.5
million Armenians were exterminated [in] a senseless and brutal series
of acts," noted San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera. On behalf of
the City of San Francisco, Herrera pledged to those attending the press
conference: "We won’t stand idly by and ignore history and promote
intolerance and that we’ll stand by you to ensure that the truth is
told, that the work that Hrant Dink did is not in vein and we’ll
continue to spread that message to ensure that history and civility and
tolerance is something that is promoted."
Dink had faced multiple prosecutions under a Turkish law prohibiting
"insulting Turkishness" for statements he made affirming the Armenian
Genocide. His murder came amid a growing tide of official Turkish
government pressure to silence him and on the eve of a renewed drive by
the US State Department to block Congress from commemorating this crime
against humanity.
"Turkey should be held to answer," said Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi.
"Their application to any kind of contemporary, to any kind of modern
relationship economically, environmentally, and socially, should also be
predicated in the fact that they recognize what occurred in 1915."
The executive director of the Holocaust Center of Northern California,
Leslie Kane remarked, "Hatred and intolerance are unacceptable. The
denial of the Armenian genocide is unacceptable. Indifference is
unacceptable. It is our duty to learn about the Armenian genocide and to
confront denial wherever it exists. And it is our duty to educate our
youth so that the Armenian genocide is never forgotten, and that
genocides the world over are permanently halted."