Ottawa Citizen, Canada
January 27, 2007 Saturday
Final Edition
Writers’ bloc
The Turkish response to the assassination of writer Hrant Dink has
been encouraging. "We are all Hrant Dink," said the protesters’
signs. It looks as if the people of Turkey are ready to defend their
freedom.
There is little doubt that Hrant Dink was killed because of his
opinions. He was shot to death on Jan. 19 in Istanbul. He was the
editor of a Turkish-Armenian newspaper who spoke his mind about the
1915 massacres of Armenians. The Turkish authorities have arrested a
17-year-old and say they suspect the teenager was incited by
nationalist militants.
Turkey has yet to come to terms with its history, and there is
resentment and tension between ethnic Armenians and ethnic Turks. In
such a climate, one might have expected the assassination of a
prominent advocate, on either side, to inflame sectarian divisions,
even to spark a cycle of revenge.
That hasn’t happened. There have been large and peaceful protests in
the streets. Non-Armenians carried signs that read, "We are all
Armenian." Crowd estimates from Mr. Dink’s funeral procession have
been on the order of 100,000 mourners.
This is an encouraging sign that the people of Turkey want to live in
a secular, pluralist and free society. As for the Turkish government,
the signs are not as clear. Despite the official display of mourning
over Mr. Dink, it must not be forgotten that Turkish law makes it a
crime to "insult" Turkey and its national character.
This law has led to charges against several writers, including Mr.
Dink. It may have been a misguided teenager who shot him, but it is
the government that is willing to send writers such as Mr. Dink to
jail for using the word "genocide" in the context of the Armenian
massacres.
When Turkish police brought a nationalist into a courtroom to face
charges in the Dink case, he yelled that Orhan Pamuk had better watch
out. Mr. Pamuk is the Turkish writer who won the 2006 Nobel literary
prize. He, too, has been charged with the crime of insulting
Turkishness, although his case was thrown out on a technicality. The
state is sending mixed signals to the nationalist zealots, as the
courtroom outburst — not to mention the Dink murder itself —
suggested.
Turkey’s policy of harassing its best writers is an embarrassment to
a country that wants to be seen as worthy of inclusion in the
European Union.
Most writers, and especially journalists, work to keep governments
accountable to the citizenry. In return, citizens will pressure their
governments to respect the press. In China, outcry over a journalist
beaten to death at a coal mine has caused President Hu Jintao to
become personally involved in the investigation.
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression puts the number of
journalists killed last year at 82 and calls 2006 the most deadly
year on record for journalists. Deciding whether a person is a
journalist and why they died isn’t always a simple task, so tallies
vary, but 2006 was a deadly year by anyone’s calculation.
Freedom of expression is the first freedom; without it, no country
can build democracy. Without it, Turkey cannot reach its potential.