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Hrant Dink
Armenian champion in Turkey
The Independent/UK
22 January 2007
Hrant Dink, journalist: born Malatya, Turkey 15 September 1954;
Editor, Agos 1996-2007; married 1972 Rakel Yagbasan (two sons, one
daughter), died Istanbul 19 January 2007.
'For me, 2007 is likely to be a hard year," the Turkish Armenian
journalist Hrant Dink wrote earlier this month. "The trials will
continue, new ones will be started. Who knows what other injustices I
will be up against?" But with his computer filling up with e-mailed
death threats he knew it was only a matter of time, even if he thought
he would survive the year. He likened himself to a pigeon, constantly
looking around for signs of danger.
Dink was gunned down on Friday outside the offices of Agos ("Ploughed
Furrow"), the weekly Turkish Armenian paper he edited in central
Istanbul. "I have killed the infidel," his murderer was heard to
shout.
Hrant Dink was the most prominent and controversial ethnic Armenian
figure in Turkey. With some 60,000 people, the Armenians are the
largest surviving Christian minority in the country, despite a
systematic and brutal attempt to exterminate or expel the entire
population in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire in what Dink and
all other Armenians rightly insist was genocide.
That successive Turkish governments have devoted massive resources to
denying the genocide has poisoned relations between Turks and
Armenians to this day. Yet Dink sought to overcome this legacy,
arguing that the Turks of today are different from their Ottoman
ancestors who conducted the killings. He also argued that Armenians
around the world should no longer see relations with the Turks through
the prism of the genocide. "Turkish-Armenian relations should be taken
out of a 1915-metres-deep well," he argued.
But the Turkish authorities repeatedly tried to intimidate Dink into
silence, closing the paper in 2001 and prosecuting him, but he was
acquitted. Over the years he faced repeated trials, often under the
notorious Article 301 of the Criminal Code which punishes "insulting
Turkishness", on one occasion using deliberately twisted evidence.
Dink had a troubled childhood. One of a small number of surviving
Armenian families in south-east Turkey in what had before the genocide
been the heartland of Turkish Armenia, the Dink family disintegrated
soon after Hrant's birth through his father's gambling. The young Dink
was then cared for by his grandfather, the inspiration throughout his
life. Even in primary school the boy objected to the mandatory daily
recitation of the patriotic verse "I am a Turk, I am honest, I am
hardworking", insisting that he was a Turkish citizen of Armenian
origin.
When only seven, Dink and his brothers were sent to an Armenian
orphanage in Istanbul, where he would meet his future wife. In his
final year at an Armenian secondary school in the city he was expelled
for his left-wing sympathies and finished his schooling at a Turkish
school. In 1972 he legally changed his first name to Firak, which did
not give away his ethnic Armenian origin in a highly nationalist
country that refuses to embrace its many minorities.
Dink took a degree in zoology at Istanbul University, but failed to
complete further studies in philosophy. He was occasionally jailed for
his leftist activities. He and his wife then ran an Armenian youth
camp, but after this he was subjugated to Education Ministry control
he moved into journalism. For a decade he ran a bookshop with his
brothers, steering clear of political activity.
In 1996 he founded Agos, which was published in Turkish and Armenian
and came to have an influence beyond its circulation of 6,000. Run
collegially, it had its offices in a converted flat that were always
crowded and humming with debate. Dink paid particular attention to
training young ethnic Armenian journalists, many of whom joined the
mainstream Turkish media.
Not all in the Armenian community admired Dink's role as its unelected
spokesperson. He was not devout and the Armenian patriarch often
disagreed with his approach, preferring a quieter line.
But Dink was above all a figure in Turkish society as a whole,
speaking up for democracy, human rights, free speech and the rights of
oppressed groups, including women, Kurds and other ethnic
minorities. A fluent Turkish-speaker (some say he was more eloquent in
Turkish than Armenian), Dink was a popular interviewee, able to
present difficult views directly and imaginatively without alienating
his audience.
This made his conviction in October 2005 of "insulting Turkishness"
and suspended six-month sentence particularly hard to bear. "When I
first heard the verdict I found myself under the bitter pressure of my
hope that I kept during all the months of the trial. I was stupefied,"
Dink recalled. "In my view, to humiliate people we live together with
on the basis of ethnic or religious difference is called racism and
this is something unforgivable."
Branding the verdict "a bad joke", he vowed to fight to clear his
name. He cried as he spoke of it. "My only weapon is my sincerity."
Felix Corley
Armenian champion in Turkey
The Independent/UK
22 January 2007
Hrant Dink, journalist: born Malatya, Turkey 15 September 1954;
Editor, Agos 1996-2007; married 1972 Rakel Yagbasan (two sons, one
daughter), died Istanbul 19 January 2007.
'For me, 2007 is likely to be a hard year," the Turkish Armenian
journalist Hrant Dink wrote earlier this month. "The trials will
continue, new ones will be started. Who knows what other injustices I
will be up against?" But with his computer filling up with e-mailed
death threats he knew it was only a matter of time, even if he thought
he would survive the year. He likened himself to a pigeon, constantly
looking around for signs of danger.
Dink was gunned down on Friday outside the offices of Agos ("Ploughed
Furrow"), the weekly Turkish Armenian paper he edited in central
Istanbul. "I have killed the infidel," his murderer was heard to
shout.
Hrant Dink was the most prominent and controversial ethnic Armenian
figure in Turkey. With some 60,000 people, the Armenians are the
largest surviving Christian minority in the country, despite a
systematic and brutal attempt to exterminate or expel the entire
population in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire in what Dink and
all other Armenians rightly insist was genocide.
That successive Turkish governments have devoted massive resources to
denying the genocide has poisoned relations between Turks and
Armenians to this day. Yet Dink sought to overcome this legacy,
arguing that the Turks of today are different from their Ottoman
ancestors who conducted the killings. He also argued that Armenians
around the world should no longer see relations with the Turks through
the prism of the genocide. "Turkish-Armenian relations should be taken
out of a 1915-metres-deep well," he argued.
But the Turkish authorities repeatedly tried to intimidate Dink into
silence, closing the paper in 2001 and prosecuting him, but he was
acquitted. Over the years he faced repeated trials, often under the
notorious Article 301 of the Criminal Code which punishes "insulting
Turkishness", on one occasion using deliberately twisted evidence.
Dink had a troubled childhood. One of a small number of surviving
Armenian families in south-east Turkey in what had before the genocide
been the heartland of Turkish Armenia, the Dink family disintegrated
soon after Hrant's birth through his father's gambling. The young Dink
was then cared for by his grandfather, the inspiration throughout his
life. Even in primary school the boy objected to the mandatory daily
recitation of the patriotic verse "I am a Turk, I am honest, I am
hardworking", insisting that he was a Turkish citizen of Armenian
origin.
When only seven, Dink and his brothers were sent to an Armenian
orphanage in Istanbul, where he would meet his future wife. In his
final year at an Armenian secondary school in the city he was expelled
for his left-wing sympathies and finished his schooling at a Turkish
school. In 1972 he legally changed his first name to Firak, which did
not give away his ethnic Armenian origin in a highly nationalist
country that refuses to embrace its many minorities.
Dink took a degree in zoology at Istanbul University, but failed to
complete further studies in philosophy. He was occasionally jailed for
his leftist activities. He and his wife then ran an Armenian youth
camp, but after this he was subjugated to Education Ministry control
he moved into journalism. For a decade he ran a bookshop with his
brothers, steering clear of political activity.
In 1996 he founded Agos, which was published in Turkish and Armenian
and came to have an influence beyond its circulation of 6,000. Run
collegially, it had its offices in a converted flat that were always
crowded and humming with debate. Dink paid particular attention to
training young ethnic Armenian journalists, many of whom joined the
mainstream Turkish media.
Not all in the Armenian community admired Dink's role as its unelected
spokesperson. He was not devout and the Armenian patriarch often
disagreed with his approach, preferring a quieter line.
But Dink was above all a figure in Turkish society as a whole,
speaking up for democracy, human rights, free speech and the rights of
oppressed groups, including women, Kurds and other ethnic
minorities. A fluent Turkish-speaker (some say he was more eloquent in
Turkish than Armenian), Dink was a popular interviewee, able to
present difficult views directly and imaginatively without alienating
his audience.
This made his conviction in October 2005 of "insulting Turkishness"
and suspended six-month sentence particularly hard to bear. "When I
first heard the verdict I found myself under the bitter pressure of my
hope that I kept during all the months of the trial. I was stupefied,"
Dink recalled. "In my view, to humiliate people we live together with
on the basis of ethnic or religious difference is called racism and
this is something unforgivable."
Branding the verdict "a bad joke", he vowed to fight to clear his
name. He cried as he spoke of it. "My only weapon is my sincerity."
Felix Corley