Turkish Press: Hrant Dink remembered on 14th anniversary of murder: ‘They are trying not to solve the killing’

Hrant Dink has been commemorated on the 14th anniversary of his killing in İstanbul.

He was the editor-in-chief of Agos, a weekly newspaper published in Turkish and Armenian.

Dink was shot in the back in front of the newspaper’s office in Şişli, İstanbul on January 19, 2007.

The assassination came after he was convicted of “insulting Turkishness” because of his comments during a TV program.

Unlike previous years, a mass gathering was not held in this year’s commemoration ceremony due to the coronavirus pandemic. Rather, a symbolic event was held as Dink’s spouse Rakel and friends placed carnations and placards reading “Buradasın Ahparig” (You are here, comrade) in front of the Sebat Apartment, where Dink was shot.

Rakel Dink, read out a statement at the ceremony:

“We have been here for 154 years. Today, we are here under the conditions of the pandemic, with its pain and uncertainty. I know that there are many whose hearts beat here. This has become a place where the subjects that are wanted to be forgotten are remembered. This is the place where we have learned to be brothers and sisters with pain. This has become a place for those who seek justice and righteousness. This area has become an area where the murders committed by the state, the murders that the state shut its eyes to, the murders that were left unsolved are spoken out.

“It wasn’t enough for them to deny the pain that we, as the grandchildren of the ‘leftovers of the sword,’ have suffered for a hundred years, they added insult to the injury by naming it ‘the so-called genocide.’ Have you ever thought, ‘We are hurting someone?’ Your hatred towards Armenians is seriously exhausting. Aren’t you exhausted? Remaining silent is embarrassing. May God help us.

“Responsibility, sensitivity, fairness, and truth are needed for it not to be repeated. Confession, apology and repentance are needed. There are so many mournings and cases that we have become ashamed of expressing our pain. Unfortunately, there is a state whose problems with its citizens don’t end. But, who prevails by killing? Why are there evilness, enmity, oppression, wars rather than peace, well-being, love, goodness and joy? These are also hostility towards God. Can clean hands be like that? Which soap cleans this virus? Is human dignity protected like this?

“The case of my husband has been continuing for 14 years. They couldn’t solve a murder case in 14 years. Because the intention is not to solve it, they are working on how to cover it up. But it is so entangled in everything that they can’t cover it anymore. Soon, they will try to say the case is over. Why do you run away from our attorneys’ request if you are so sure that it is over?

“Many alliances have been founded and broken in this country for 14 years, and our case has changed colors according to them. One can’t help but wonder which alliance touches whom now? Simply saying, ‘FETÖ killed Hrant’ means, ‘I didn’t do it, my hand did.’ Saying, ‘Ergenekon killed Hrant’ means ‘I didn’t do it, my foot did.’ A state that is almost trying to prove that it’s not a killer by trying to show that it’s stupid…

“Whichever building, whichever wall is collapsed, the people will build better than this. If it can’t, it is already in ruins.”

Commemoration of Hrant Dink: