Reporters without borders (press release), France
May 22 2007
Who was Hrant Dink?
`We have killed a man whose ideas we couldn’t accept’ – Orhan Pamuk
Turkey’s journalists are mourning the death of Hrant Dink, 52, a
newspaper editor of Armenian origin who was gunned down on 19
January. The barbaric action of Ogün Samast, a 17-year-old Turkish
ultra-nationalist, silenced an advocate of peace and democracy.
Throughout his career, Dink fought passionately for acknowledgement
of the Armenian genocide, and was awarded the Henri Nannen Press
Freedom Prize in recognition of his efforts. His death has
exacerbated the divisions between nationalists and the more
progressive sectors of Turkish society. Tirelessly committed and
always controversial, Dink never lost faith in the possibility of
national reconciliation.
`I have the right to die in the country where I was born’
Born on 15 September 1954, Dink grew up with his two brothers in a
Protestant Armenian orphanage in Istanbul. A zoology and philosophy
graduate, he founded Agos, the country’s first bilingual
Turkish-Armenian weekly, in 1996. Endowed with a bold and acerbic
style of writing, he waged an unflagging battle for better relations
between Turks and the Armenian minority. He regarded Agos as `a
bridge between the Turkish and Armenian communities (…) The only
way to combat the deep-seated prejudices in Turkish society.’
Dink was subjected to administrative harassment and judicial
intimidation throughout his career. In October 2005, he was convicted
under article 301 of the criminal code, which protects Turkish
identity. There have been serious violations of free expression since
this article’s adoption in June 2005, and around 65 writers and
journalists have been prosecuted. This law, which Reporters Without
Borders has repeatedly condemned, allows the Turkish authorities to
maintain their harassment of the media, journalists and
intellectuals. The targets have included Nobel literature laureate
Orhan Pamuk, journalist Umur Hozatli and of course Dink.
Dink’s comments about the Armenian genocide were called an `offence
to Turkey.’ In 2005, he received a six-month suspended sentence for
`humiliating Turkish identity.’ He was prosecuted again in September
2006 over an interview he gave to Reuters in which he referred to the
massacres in Anatolia during the First World War as `genocide,’ and
he had been facing a possible three-year prison sentence.
Regarded by nationalists as a traitor, Dink became a target of groups
on Turkey’s far-right. Despite all the threats and accusations, he
always refused to leave Turkey. In his last interview he said: `It is
here that I want to pursue this struggle. Because it is not just my
struggle, it is the struggle of all those want the democratisation of
Turkey. If I surrender and leave the country, it will be a disgrace
for everyone. My ancestors lived in this country, it is here that I
have my roots and I have the right to die in the country where I was
born.’
In his last column, which appeared in the 19 January issue of Agos,
on the day he died, he expressed his feelings about the prosecutions
that had been brought against him. He spoke movingly about a man who
was afraid: `I see myself like a scared pigeon but I know that in
this country, the people do not attack pigeons (…) Pigeons can live
in the cities, even in crowds. Nervous, certainly, but free.’ Dink’s
young murderer confessed to shooting him in order to put an end to
what he considered to be insults to Turks.
Dink is survived by his widow, Rakel, and their three children. As
she stood beside his coffin, covered by yellow and red carnations,
his widow told a silent crowd of 100,000 mourners: `We say a finally
goodbye to my beloved, the patriarch of our family and the half of my
body.’ She also described the passion that burned in her husband, for
whom `there were no taboos and nothing was untouchable.’
A life of struggle
The victim of his struggle against the Turkish state’s revisionism,
Dink was one of the figureheads of the battle of Turkey’s Armenians
for recognition of the 1915 massacres. His murder highlights a
disturbing situation in Turkey in which rampant nationalism continues
to contaminate the younger generations. Dink’s murder has been a rude
awakening for the political and civic consciousness, and many are now
pressing for reform of article 301.
The presence of senior Armenian and Turkish officials at Dink’s
funeral has been seen as a sign of improvement in relations between
the two countries. Although it recognised Armenia when it obtained
independence in 1991, Turkey has never accepted its responsibility
for the 1915 genocide.
The silent procession of around 100,000 people on 23 January is
evidence that a significant part of the Turkish population is
committed to the defence of freedoms. All the communities taking part
shared in brandishing banners that said: `We are all Armenians. We
are all Hrant Dink.’ The slogan was all the more surprising in a
country where `Armenian’is still sometimes used as an insult. Dink
today rests in Istanbul’s Armenian cemetery, but his struggle goes
on.
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