HRANT’S FRIENDS MEET IN FRONT OF AGOS, PROTEST LACK OF JUSTICE
Today’s Zaman
Jan 20 2011
Turkey
Hrant Dink’s friends and sorrowful widow Rakel Dink laid carnations
on the sidewalk in front of Agos, where he fell after being shot from
behind on Jan. 19, 2007.
Friends of Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian journalist who was
assassinated four years ago, once more called for justice as they
gathered in front of the building where the Turkish-Armenian weekly
he headed, Agos, is located.
The crowd, which gathered at 3 p.m., the time Dink was shot by
17-year-old ultranationalist Ogun Samast, held signs of protest
against a system that failed to reveal the masterminds of the crime.
“No justice in four years,” “No Parliament in four years,” “Justice
for Hrant” read the placards that they carried along Å~^iÅ~_li’s
Halaskargazi Street, which was closed to traffic, and as they laid red
carnations where Dink fell after being shot from behind. Dink’s widow,
Rakel Dink, did not say anything but greeted the crowd from the window
of Agos. Several groups marched to Å~^iÅ~_li from different locations
in Ä°stanbul. One of them was led by actor Mehmet Alabora. Another
group set off from Taksim with placards that read, “We will not forget”
and “We will not forgive.” The families of other prominent people who
were either killed or suffered due to smear campaigns were also present
at gathering in front of Agos. The group included the families of Ahmet
Kaya, Sebahattin Ali, Dogan Oz, Cevat Yurdakul, Cavit Orhan Tutengil,
Umit Kaftancıoglu, Ugur Mumcu, Cetin Eemec, Musa Anter, Ugur Mumcu,
Metin Altıok, Metin Göktepe, Kemal Turkler and Necip Hablemitoglu.
Nukhet Ä°pekci, daughter of journalist Abdi Ä°pekci, who was
assassinated in 1979, said they never want to see such murders again.
“Future generations should not carry this shame. We will not define
those crimes as murder, lynching or killing. We know that these are
crimes against humanity even though current laws are not sufficient
to see them that way. We want to know who will shed light on those
crimes. We want to know and see that,” she said.
Meanwhile, Dink’s family filed a new suit this week against 31
officials — including the former governor of Ä°stanbul and the
former local gendarmerie commander and police chief in Trabzon — for
neglect and “aiding the murderer by way of making it easy to commit
the crime.” The investigation into Dink’s 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 lawyers indicated in yet another report 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.
In addition, a new law restricting the length of time a suspect can
be kept under arrest while awaiting or standing trial, which went
into effect as of the beginning of this year, might lead to Samast’s
release. The change to Article 102 of the CMK went into force on Jan.
1 after it was amended in 2005 to reduce the lengthy trial periods
and appeals processes in courts that lead to inmates spending long
periods in jail without ever having been convicted. After going into
effect, many suspects who had been in detention for five to 10 years
pending trial were released.
Samast, arrested on Jan. 24, 2007, a few days after the Jan. 19 murder
of Dink, has been on trial in a juvenile court since he was a minor
at the time of the crime and after he confessed to the murder. At the
15th hearing of the Dink trial in January last year at the 14th High
Criminal Court, the young man’s defense lawyer, Levent Yıldırım,
reiterated that he had requested that the court allow Samast to be
tried in juvenile court. Yıldırım, who referred to the Law of
Amendment to the Counterterrorism Law (TMK) requested a transfer to
a juvenile court for his client.
A co-plaintiff attorney for the Dink family, had expressed at the
time that Samast should be tried with the other suspects in the same
court, the court has accepted Yıldırım’s request. The presiding
judge decided that according to the new TMK, the current court lacks
subject-matter jurisdiction. Dink family lawyer Fethiye Cetin also
said the problem is not the new law but the fact that Samast has not
received any punishment to this day, and more importantly, the fact
that the perpetrators of the crime are still free.
One important development has been the judgment handed down by the
European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on Sept. 14, 2010 on Dink v.
Turkey, in which Turkey was found to be in violation of Articles 2
and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights related to the
“right to life” and “freedom of expression,” respectively. The
court found Turkey in violation in two major respects — the first
was Turkey’s inability to protect Dink’s life, and the second was
Turkey’s inability to carry out an effective investigation to expose
and punish those who neglected to protect Dink by not acting on the
intelligence showing that his life was in imminent danger.
“This judgment clearly urges Turkey to take serious steps to remedy
the failures of the Turkish judicial and administrative systems,”
said Cetin, who filed a petition with the court overseeing the Dink
murder case on Jan. 17, reminding it of the steps it should take in
light of the ECtHR’s ruling.
In addition, the head of the court was changed in December of last
year. The Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) removed
Erkan Canak from the Ä°stanbul 14th High Criminal Court, which is
hearing the Dink case, on grounds that an earlier Ministry of Justice
report alleged that he had close contacts with suspects in the case of
Ergenekon, a clandestine underground network accused of creating chaos
and plotting to overthrow the government. Some Ergenekon suspects
had repeated appearances in the smear campaign against Dink, but
the petitions from the Dink family lawyers to have their complaints
included in the Ergenekon and related deep-state investigations and
cases have not been approved. Cetin said they have yet to know the
attitude of the new judge, Rustem Eryılmaz, as the next hearing for
the Dink trial will be on Feb. 7.
Another call on the government to shed light on political
assassinations came from the opposition Republican People’s Party
(CHP) leader, Kemal Kılıcdaroglu. He said there have been other
assassinations in the past that targeted journalists and that had
remained unsolved.
From: A. Papazian