Today marks the fourth anniversary of Hrant Dink’s Assassination

19.01.2011 12:12
Today marks the fourth anniversary of the killing of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink by an ultranationalist youth in 2007, which led to a big uproar in Turkey and abroad.

Four years after Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink's murder, the trial has not reached a just conclusion even though there is mounting evidence regarding the real perpetrators of the crime, and the same call has been repeated: Political will is needed so that justice will be served for Dink.

The late editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, Dink was shot dead by an ultranationalist teenager outside the offices of his newspaper in broad daylight in Ýstanbul on Jan. 19, 2007. The investigation into his murder has stalled as the suspected perpetrator and his accomplices have been put on trial, but those who masterminded the plot to kill him have yet to be exposed and punished.

Dink family lawyer Fethiye Çetin indicated in her recent analysis that there is a striking unity of action between the individuals, institutions and mechanisms in the preparation and perpetration of the Dink murder, in concealing and tampering with evidence after the murder, in burying the truth, in drawing boundaries and limits on how far the trial proceedings could go and in ensuring that these boundaries are not crossed.

At Dink’s funeral hundreds of thousands of mourners marched in protest of the assassination, chanting, “We are all Armenians” and “We are all Hrant Dink.” Critics of the infamous Article 301, which made insulting Turkishness a crime, became increasingly vocal after his death, leading to parliamentary proposals for its repeal. A series of changes were made to this article on April 30, 2008, including a new amendment that makes it obligatory to secure the approval of the minister of justice to file a case under the article.

S.M.