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Turkey Turns Down Editor's Appeal

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  • Turkey Turns Down Editor's Appeal

    TURKEY TURNS DOWN EDITOR'S APPEAL

    Yerkir
    02.05.2006 16:38

    YEREVAN (YERKIR) - A Turkish court has rejected an appeal by a
    prominent journalist against a ruling that found him guilty of
    insulting Turkishness.

    Hrant Dink, an Armenian living in Turkey, was given a six-month
    suspended sentence last October. He had written a newspaper article
    which addressed the mass killings of Ottoman Armenians nine decades
    ago.

    In February, the chief prosecutor's office at the Appeals Court
    considered Dink's case and recommended that the remarks were in no
    way insulting. But now, in a surprise development, the court itself
    has chosen to ignore that interpretation and ruled that the substance
    of the charge still stands.

    Dink, the editor of the Agos newspaper that appears in Turkish and
    Armenian, was first found guilty of insulting Turkishness last year
    when a court ruled that one of his articles described Turkish blood
    as dirty.

    Hrant Dink always denied his words meant any such thing and argued
    his column was in fact aimed at improving the difficult relationship
    between Turks and Armenians.

    The case will now go back to the local court that first heard it,
    and Dink could face a retrial.

    European Union officials have expressed serious concern about the
    article of law that was used against Hrant Dink and several dozen
    other writers in Turkey.
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