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by **joe** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 6:21 pm

http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0 ... 61,00.html

Editor shot dead in Istanbul

From correspondents in Istanbul

January 20, 2007 12:56am
Article from: Reuters

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A HIGH-profile Turkish-Armenian editor, convicted of insulting Turkey's identity, was shot dead outside his newspaper office in Istanbul today.

Hrant Dink, a frequent target of nationalist anger for his comments on the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War One, was shot as he left his weekly Agos in central Istanbul.

“A bullet has been fired at democracy and freedom of expression. I condemn the traitorous hands behind this disgraceful murder,” Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said.

“This was an attack on our peace and stability.”

Mr Erdogan told a hastily called news conference in Ankara that two people had been detained in connection with the murder.

The attack is bound to raise political tensions in would-be EU member Turkey, where politicians of all parties have been courting the nationalist vote ahead of presidential elections in May and parliamentary polls due by November.

Turkey's main stock market index fell sharply on the news.

NTV television said Dink had been shot three times in the head and neck.

Muharrem Gozutok, a restaurant owner near the newspaper, said the assailant looked about 20, wore jeans and a cap and shouted “I shot the non-Muslim” as he left the scene.

Protesters outside the Agos office on one of Istanbul's busiest streets chanted “the murderer government will pay” and “shoulder-to-shoulder against fascism”.

Television footage showed Dink's body lying in the street covered by a white sheet, with hundreds of bystanders gathering behind a police cordon.

“This bullet was fired against Turkey ... an image has been created about Turkey that its Armenian citizens have no safety,” said CNN Turk editor Taha Akyol.

Last year Turkey's appeals court upheld a six-month suspended jail sentence against Dink for referring in an article to an Armenian nationalist idea of ethnic purity without Turkish blood.

The court said the comments went against article 301 of Turkey's revised penal code, which lets prosecutors pursue cases against writers and scholars for “insulting Turkish identity”.

The ruling was sharply criticised by the EU.

Dink was one of dozens of writers who have been charged for insulting Turkishness, particularly over the alleged genocide of Armenians by Turks during World War I.

Turkey denies allegations that 1.5 million Armenians were killed in a systematic genocide. It says both Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks were killed in a partisan conflict that raged on Ottoman territory.

But the government has repeatedly promised to revise the much criticised article of the penal code amid EU pressure. Improving freedom of speech in Turkey is a priority in Ankara's efforts to join the 27-member bloc.

“Hrant was a perfect target for those who want to obstruct Turkey's democratisation and its path towards the European Union,” Agos writer Aydin Engin said.

Dink was editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish and Armenian weekly and one of the most prominent Armenian voices in Turkey.

“I will not leave this country. If I go I would feel I was leaving alone the people struggling for democracy in this country. It would be a betrayal of them. I could never do this,” Dink said in an interview last July.

Tensions have been growing ahead of presidential elections amid a rise in nationalism.

Turkey's powerful secularist establishment fears the ruling AK Party, which controls parliament and has roots in political Islam, will elect Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan as president.

Secularists, including powerful army generals and judges, fear Mr Erdogan – a former Islamist – would try to erode Turkey's strict division between state and religion if elected president.

Mr Erdogan denies he or his party have an Islamist agenda.

by **ONURLU_1925** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 4:03 am

I know, someone claim that Turkish people/Turkey murdered him. Because there are many blind, one-sided people in there.
Here are some photos in Istanbul, in Beyoglu, in Taksim Square. Turkish people never forget Hrant Dink. Somebody supports his ideas or not, but he never deserved to be murdered.

After Hrant Dink murder, Turkish people were protesting murderers...
http://www.haberturk.com/2007/01/20/resim/yurudu1.jpg
http://www.haberturk.com/2007/01/20/resim/yurudu3.jpg
http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/_newsimages/2746538.jpg

by **BirKibrisli** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 4:03 pm

A cowardly,barbarous,heinous act of stupidity...
:shock:

May his soul rest in peace in the land he loved so much.
It is not a good day to belong to the dastardly species called Homo Sapiens... :evil:

by **reportfromcyprus** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 4:21 pm

Turkish police arrested a couple of people, and the Council of Europe condemned his murder, so did a lot of other people. Maybe this awful crime will help Turkey see that freedom of the press is one of the most important rights to protect in a democracy.

by **cypezokyli** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 4:37 pm

if i am informed correctly, he was hated by both armenian and turkish nationalists....
i guess its the fate of the people who fight for compromise.

may he rest in peace

by **andri_cy** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 10:23 pm

May his soul rest in peace.

by **Sotos** » Sun Jan 21, 2007 2:03 am

The Turkish government can not jail easily the people they don't like anymore so now they have to just kill them. Now they will arrest and jail some other innocent people they don't like and blame them for the crime. It is not the first time that the Turkish secret agency is doing such things. They did it in Turkey many times, they did it with TC journalists, and they did it with some of our own like Theofilos Georgiades.

by **BirKibrisli** » Sun Jan 21, 2007 2:05 am

They have arrested Ogun Samas, a young man from Trabzon, together with the gun allegedly used in the shooting. Turkish radio is reporting that he was turned in by his father who recognised him from the footage captured on a shopfront video.

We might get to learn the motivation behind this vile act,with some luck. :cry:

by **LENA** » Sun Jan 21, 2007 2:13 am

May his soul rest in peace!

Sotos you are right but you dont have any proofs of that. Its true that Turkish secret agency do those things and then might blame and arrest innocent people but those thing happen not only in Turkey but all over the world. Sometimes we might blame someone for an X thing but he might done the Y or Z or more but not the X. Without any proof nobody will hurt them!!

by **LENA** » Sun Jan 21, 2007 2:15 am

Sorry Birkibrisli I just your post...hopefully we might learn...but...who knows??

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