Author: Emil Lazarian

Turkish Daily News
Jan 22 2007

Profile of Hrant Dink’s Juvenile Murder Suspect
Monday, January 22, 2007

ÞAFAK TÝMUR
ISTANBUL – Turkish Daily News

A 17-year-old described by friends as combative and by his family as
impressionable was arrested Saturday in the Black Sea city of Samsun
for the murder a day earlier of journalist Hrant Dink.

Ogun Samast, a resident of Trabzon, reportedly confessed to the
killing shortly after his arrest, allegedly on his way home by bus
after gunning down the famed Armenian-Turkish newspaper editor on an
Istanbul street mid-day Friday.

"I don’t regret it. I would do it again," the youth was quoted as
saying during his preliminary interrogation in Samsun, according
Chief Prosecutor Ahmet Gokcinar.

As Samast was transported to Istanbul over the weekend, a round-up of
other suspects continued in the country amid widespread condemnation,
protests from Istanbul to the southern province of Hatay. As of
Sunday evening, a total 12 others suspected of complicity had been
arrested in Istanbul and Trabzon. The youth’s ties to Trabzon also
focused attention on the city’s reputation as center for anti-western
feeling. Catholic priest Andrea Santoro was slain there in February
of last year, also by a juvenile.

The Internet was an influence in his decision to attack Dink, Samast
told police during his first interrogation in Istanbul, according to
the Anatolian News Agency and other reports.

"I read on the Internet that [Dink] said ‘I am from Turkey but Turkish
blood is dirty’ and I decided to kill him …I do not regret this,"
CNN Turk quoted Samast as saying.

Samast’s jailhouse talk of the Internet turned attention to various
nationalist web sites, many containing expressions of joy in various
forums. One post read: "Thanks to whoever has given the order and
thanks to whoever has pulled the trigger." Another statement from
the forum said, "The best news ever."

"Why is terrorist training free on the internet?" asked journalist
Mustafa Mutlu in a Sunday column in the mass daily Vatan. He
described how much information is on the internet which can be used
for terrorist attacks.

In the aftermath of the killing which topped the news of every
newspaper and television broadcast over the weekend, many decried
the Internet as a source of dissemination of the hatred behind the
killing of Dink, a native of Malatya who was 53.

Much television commentary and debate also turned on the fact no
protection was provided for Dink, despite a barrage of death threats
before and after his suspended conviction last year for "insulting
Turkishness" under the infamous Article 301 of the Turkish penal
code. Security officials, including Istanbul Governor Muammer Guler,
responded that Dink rejected offers of security.Owners of the series of
small shops that surround Dink’s newspaper, Agos, quarreled with that
account, however. One shop owner told the TDN that a plainclothes
surveillance policeman generally kept an eye on the door of the
newspaper but was absent on Friday. His absence may have let other
regulars in the neighborhood to dismiss Samast’s loitering presence
in front of the newspaper Friday as a change in the guard.

The quick arrested was credited in the media to the aid of the
youngster’s father, Ahmet Samast, who reportedly identified his son
from the broadcast of CCTV footage capturing the fleeing gunman and
alerted policec

Among suspects under continued questioning in Istanbul, one, Yasin
Hayal, served 11 months in jail for bombing a McDonald’s restaurant
in Trabzon in 2004, Vatan reported. Investigators drew a think line
between Trabzon and Istanbul in their early reconstruction of the
killing and its planning.

"The murder was planned in Trabzon and carried out in Istanbul.

Everybody who helped with this has been identified," Trabzon Governor
Huseyin Yavuzdemir said.Various description of Samast emerged over the
weekend, family described him as a boy who was calm and withdrawn but
friends said he could be aggressive and contentious. Samast family
neighbors in the town of Peletli neighboring Trabzon said the youth
was a combative teenager and was kicked off the town football team
because of his aggression. Having left high school, the unemployed
teenager spent a great amount of time on the Internet. "It is a
disaster to have a son in Trabzon," said Nihat Genc, a journalist
and a native of Trabzon in a phone interview with the Turkish Daily
News. The combination of high unemployment and a large and energetic
young population is a lethal brew, he said. Frustrated youth become
hard to control and "they will leave Trabzon sooner or later, like a
destiny."While neighbors told the NTV news network that Samast was
not overtly political, no more or less nationalist than his peers,
the profile of others arrested pointed to ultra-nationlist ties. His
suspected co-conspirator Hayal, convicted the McDonald’s bomb attack,
is accused, according to reports of Samast’s statements to police,
of enlisting him kill Dink. Hayal had managed a tea house of the
Nationalist Movement Party’s (MHP) Peletli branch. MHP is known for its
ultra-nationalist leanings.The party’s deputy president, Ali Iþýklar,
accused foreign powers of the murder of Dink: "There are foreign powers
behind this murder;" said Iþýklar in his statement about the murder,
the Anatolia agency reported. Iþýklar argued that changing Turkey’s
political agenda was the motive behind Dink’s murder.

Media reports also speculated that Samast was a member of the
youth wing of the radical nationalist Great Union Party (BBP). The
party’s chief, however, rejected the allegation: "Our colleagues
said that they do not know such a person and he does not have any
connections with the organization," said Muhsin Yazýcýoðlu the Doðan
New Agency reported. People that knew Samast stressed that he was an
impressionable and easily influenced young man. Hayri Kuk, coach of
the local football team from which Samast was dismissed, said that
Samast’s character was vulnerable to persuasion. He added that Samast
could not have acted alone and done something so critical.Samast’s
uncle Faik Samast also claimed that people could have exploited
his nephew. Samast was a brave teenager, his uncle said in a phone
interview with CNNTurk. He also said that Samast was having quarrels
at home recently because of money. Faik Samast argued that his nephew
could be deceived for money. Drugs may have played a role. Þevket
Arz, a Trabzon parliamentarian told the TDN, that allegations that
Samast was a narcotics abuser were confirmed by the Trabzon governor’s
office.The surname Samast takes its roots from a branch of Oðuz tribe
that is believed to be the ancestors of Central Asian Turks. The
clan Cepniler known by their roles in the Turkish transformation of
eastern Black Sea region in north Anatolia that families carrying the
surname Samast generally live in Tarbzon, Istanbul, Bursa, Tekirdað
and Ankara, reported the private news agency ANKA. Sunday morning at
the Armenian Patriarchy, Armenian Patriarch Mesrob II, was hoped to
preside and speak about the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist
Hrant Dink. The Patriarch did not attend the Mass. No explanation
for his absence was given. Around 400 Armenians attended the Mass. At
the Mass, a representative of Hrant Dink’s newspaper Agos said that
no Agos employee would give a statement until Tuesday. Also present
at the Mass were representatives from Armenian TV.

There was no mention of Hrant Dink during the Mass, though passages
from the Bible were read, that evoked the idea of an innocent victim
dying for others benefit. BOXEven the clues were on him

The alleged murderer of journalist Hrant Dink, Ogun Samast, was
caught by police on the way back to his hometown, Trabzon. Samast,
a 17-year old youth, carried the gun and wore the infamous white beret

ISTANBUL – with wire dispatchesPrime Minister Tayyip Erdoðan announced
late Saturday that the suspected murderer of journalist Hrant Dink
was captured in Samsun, a city at the Black Sea region, at 11 p.m.

Ogun Samast, a 17-year old who later confessed to the murder, was
brought to Istanbul by a private plane at 4.50 a.m. After being
medically examined, he was taken to the Ýstanbul Police Department,
reported the Anatolia news agency.

A shortwhile after the capture, PM Erdoðan made an announcement,
broadcasted live on television channels. "The suspect of the Hrant
Dink murder, Ogun Samast, is captured in Samsun," he said. "The gun
used at the murder was also found with him. The white beret, claimed
to be worn by the suspect at the time of the murder was on his head
… The suspect’s being snatched before Tuesday (the day of Dink’s
funeral) is a cause for delight. The investigation will be carried
on with the same firmness."

10 suspects under custody: Four of the ten people who were held
in custody in Trabzon were also brought to Ýstanbul by a scheduled
flight yesterday morning, while Samast’s father, mother and sister
were released. Another 3 were taken under police custody in Trabzon
yesterday. While the TDN was going to print, there were a total of
10 suspects under custody related to the murder.

As the suspect had not reached lawful age, Governor of Istanbul,
Muammer Guler, said that police are following questioning techniques
for the underaged.

Attorney General of Istanbul, Cengiz Engin, told journalists that the
investigation will be carried forward by a police unit specialized
in organized crimes.

According to CNN Turk news channel, Ogun Samast said "I shot him
after Friday prayers and I am not regretful," right after he was taken
under custody by the Samsun Police Department. "I have read about him
on the internet. I decided to kill him because he had said he was a
Turkish citizen, but that Turkish blood was dirty," Samast continued.

The young suspect was turned in by his father. According to news
reports, the father, Ahmet Samast, saw the CCTV images on television
and immediately called the Trabzon Police Department, saying "This
is my son." Samast said his son left for Ýstanbul three days ago and
no news had arrived from him since then.

–Boundary_(ID_RlSnx4gMFKvqDcTwOvezsQ)–

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Still no protection for Pamuk

Sabah, Turkey
Jan 22 2007

Even Istanbul"s Governor has stated that Orhan Pamuk needs urgent
protection however, the Turkish government has not yet assigned
bodyguards for the Nobel winner author, Orhan Pamuk.

SABAH reporters visited Orhan Pamuk’s apartment on Saturday and
Sunday to talk to him about the issue of his protection problem.

Reporters noticed that there were no civil or official police
officers at his apartment or on the street he resides on.

Still no protection for Pamuk

Although Prime Minister Erdoðan has ordered the Security Directorate
to assign bodyguards for those who have faced trial for violating
article 301, whether or not they ask for it, still, no measures were
taken in Orhan Pamuk’s office building.

While Turkey discusses why Hrant Dink was not being protected by the
government, despite having received threats from hundreds of people,
eyes have turned to another name on the list; Orhan Pamuk. Turkey’s
Prime Minister Erdoðan has ordered the Security Directorate to
protect those who have faced trial for violating article 301 whether
or not they request it. SABAH reporters investigated the area where
Pamuk works during the weekdays and saw no official or civil police
officers or bodyguards.

Meanwhile, Pamuk visited Hrant Dink’s family yesterday. After a 15
minute visit to the Dink family, Pamuk answered questions from the
press. Pamuk said: "Hrant was an open hearted man. In a way, we all
are responsible for his death. Those who support article 301
remaining in the constitution are even more responsible for his
death."

–Boundary_(ID_i7CpE5DhrD1w2PwQo 8WDtQ)–

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

TURKEY: THOUSANDS EXPECTED TO PAY HOMAGE TO SLAIN ARMENIAN JOURNALIST

AKI, Italy
Jan 22 2007

Istanbul, 22 Jan. (AKI) – Thousands of people are expected to turn
out for a march in Istanbul on Tuesday to commemorate promiment
Armenian Turkish journalist Hrant Dink who was shot dead in the city
last Friday. Organisers have asked participants not to chant slogans,
wave flags or carry placards along the march’s eight-kilometre route
from the downtown offices of Dink’s Agos newspaper to an Armenian
Orthodox Church in the city’s Kumkapi district, where his funeral will
be held. The organisers said that in compliance with what they believe
would have been Dink’s desire, marchers would wallk under one slogan:
"We are all Hrant Dink, We are all Armenian".

Turkish foreign minister and deputy premier Abdullah Gul as well as
several EU officials are scheduled to attend the funeral. The murder
of Dink, a moderate proponent of the rights of Turkey’s Armenian
ethnic minority has raised EU concerns on freedom of speech in Turkey.

Police have arrested a 17-year-old boy in connection with the shooting
of Dink who was hit by four bullets in front of the offices of Agos,
the bilingual Armenian-Turkish newspaper he edited on Friday afternoon.

The suspect Ogun Samast, a native of the conservative city of Trabzon
was picked up on a bus 32 hours after the murder after his father
recognised him from TV images and notified the police.

Civil society organisations have pointed the finger at Turkey’s
ultra-nationalists blaming them for the sentiments of hate whipped
up against Dink. On numerous occasions the journalist – who had been
convicted on charges of breaking laws prohibiting the mention of
the early 20th Century massacre of Armenians under the Ottomans –
said he had received death threats from people who accused him of
being a traitor.

Police are also quetioning a friend of Samast, Yasin Hayal who was
involved in a 1994 bomb attack at a McDonald’s restaurant in which
six people were injured.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

CTV.ca, Canada
Jan 22 2007

Militant confesses to inciting death of journalist
Updated Mon. Jan. 22 2007 1:13 PM ET

Associated Press

ISTANBUL, Turkey — A nationalist militant convicted of bombing a
McDonald’s restaurant in 2004 has confessed to inciting the killing
of an ethnic Armenian journalist last week, police said Monday.

Yasin Hayal told police he provided a gun and money to the teenager
who is suspected of carrying out Friday’s shooting, the Hurriyet
newspaper reported, citing police records.

The teenager, Ogun Samast, was arrested over the weekend along
with several other people and has confessed to fatally shooting the
journalist, according to a chief prosecutor.

Police confirmed the confession, but gave no details.

Police Chief Celalettin Cerrah of Istanbul said Monday that the
suspect was linked to Hayal.

If accurate, Hayal’s reported statements to police would be a strong
indication that the journalist, Hrant Dink, was targeted because of
his public statements on the mass killings of Armenians by Turks
in the early 20th century, one of the nation’s most sensitive and
divisive issues.

Istanbul Gov. Muammer Guler said prosecutors were still investigating
whether the suspect was linked to any organization, although Police
Chief Celalettin Cerrah had said earlier that there was "no political
or organizational dimension" to the slaying.

Dink, the 52-year-old editor of the Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos,
had made public his view that the killings amounted to genocide.

Nationalists consider such statements an insult to Turkey’s honor
and a threat to its unity, and Dink had been showered with insults
and death threats.

Dink was gunned down outside his newspaper’s office in Istanbul on
Friday — a killing that has drawn attention to the precarious state of
freedom of expression in a country vying for European Union membership.

Turkey has no diplomatic ties with Armenia but still invited Armenian
officials and religious leaders as well as moderate members of the
diaspora to the funeral on Tuesday.

The Vienna-based International Press Institute said the killing was
"a terrible event for Turkish press freedom." It urged Turkey to
eliminate its laws inhibiting dialogue about the Armenian killings,
as well as those that make insulting Turkishness a crime.

Police took Samast, who is 16 or 17, to the crime scene late Sunday
and prosecutors asked him to describe how he killed Dink, the Anatolia
news agency reported on Monday. A small crowd of onlookers shouted
at the suspect, "We’re all Hrants. We’re all Armenians!"

Hayal was convicted in the bombing of a McDonald’s restaurant in
Trabzon in 2004 that injured six people. He was released after serving
more than 10 months in prison. At the time, police could not establish
a link between Hayal and any underground groups, and his motive was
never clear.

Turkey’s relationship with its Armenian minority has long been haunted
by a bloody past. Much of its once-influential Armenian population
was killed or driven out beginning around 1915 in what an increasing
number of nations are calling the first genocide of the 20th century.

Turkey acknowledges that large numbers of Armenians died but vehemently
denies it was genocide, saying the overall figure is inflated and
the deaths occurred in the civil unrest during the collapse of the
Ottoman Empire.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Hrant Dink (1954-2007)
by Ronald Grigor Suny

The Nation., NY
Jan 22 2007

Hrant Dink, the courageous editor of the Armenian-Turkish newspaper
Agos, was murdered in the middle of the day on Friday, January 19,
on a city street in front of his office in Istanbul, by a 17-year-old
man he had never met. Shot three times in the nape of the neck,
he lay face down on the sidewalk, the blood pooling under him. His
killer fled, brandishing his pistol and shouting, "I have killed
an Armenian!" Dink was not killed for any deed or personal grudge
but for who he was and for his words–words that were thought by
nationalist Turks and right-wing opponents to be a threat to the
Turkish state and to "Turkishness." He was 52 years old, a man of
enormous energy and passion, someone who embraced those who met him,
enveloping them both physically and with his charm and charisma. The
circles of his admirers extended far beyond the small, beleaguered
community of Turkish Armenians.

Thousands gathered in Istanbul’s central square, Taksim, in the
hours after his killing and chanted, "We are all Armenians! We are
all Hrant Dink!" For those who loved him or were moved by his words,
it is impossible to believe he is dead.

Whatever the immediate motives of the young assassin from Trebizond to
stop Dink’s pen, Dink knew that he was extraordinarily vulnerable in
the corrosive political atmosphere gathering in Turkey, an atmosphere
enflamed by state prosecutions of dissident voices and nationalist
media. "My computer’s memory," he wrote in his last editorial, "is
loaded with sentences full of hatred and threats. I am just like a
pigeon…. I look around to my left and right, in front and behind
me." Like novelist Elif Shafak and Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk,
both of whom have raised the issue of the genocidal deportations
and massacres of hundreds of thousands of Armenians at the end
of the Ottoman Empire, so Dink had been brought before Turkish
courts and accused under the infamous Article 301 of "insulting
Turkishness." And like the others he had not been jailed but given
a suspended sentence, a gesture signaling that the Turkish state was
still wavering between adopting the legal norms of Europe and turning
its back on the invitation to join the European Union.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other officials from the
government condemned the murder, and the culprit–Ogun Samast–was
quickly apprehended. But in statements from the authorities some of
the blame was placed on those outside Turkey who have brought forth
parliamentary resolutions, as in France recently, to recognize the
events of 1915 officially as a genocide. For eleven years Dink had
edited Agos, a small-circulation newspaper, and though it had but
6,000 subscribers, its resonance was like a bell in a quiet night. In
an interview with the Committee to Protect Journalists in February
2006, he remarked, "The prosecutions are not a surprise for me. They
want to teach me a lesson because I am Armenian. They try to keep
me quiet." When asked who "they" are, he answered as many in the
Turkish opposition answer: "the deep state in Turkey," referring to
the dark forces within the military and power ministries, as well
as nationalist elements, to which even the mildly Islamist Erdogan
government must defer.

The paradox of Dink’s death is that he was killed in the name of a
particularly narrow notion of patriotism while he was himself a fervent
Turkish patriot. His vision of his native country was of a modern
democratic, tolerant state on the eastern edge of Europe, in which
his own people, the Armenians, could live with Turks, Kurds, Jews,
Greeks and the other peoples who had coexisted, however uneasily,
in the cosmopolitan empire out of which the Turkish Republic had
emerged. What he could not tolerate was the denial of the shared
history of those peoples, a history that involved mass killing of
Armenians and more recent repression of Kurds. Dink was an active
participant in the vital civil society in Turkey, key members of which
have taken up the question of the Armenian genocide as an opening wedge
to investigate the blank spots of Turkey’s past. He participated in
international meetings that included Armenian and Turkish scholars
exploring the causes and consequences of the policies of the Young
Turk government during World War I. Last year he spoke at a Turkish
academic conference on this theme at Istanbul’s Bilgi University,
a breakthrough meeting that clearly frightened those nationalists
who want to bury the inconvenient past.

While he was vitally interested in setting the record straight on
1915, Dink was more interested in the movement for Turkish democracy
than in international recognition of the Armenian massacres as a
genocide. Democracy in Turkey, he believed, would easily settle that
historical matter. For some Armenians in the diaspora who know Turks
far less well than their compatriots who live in Turkey, Dink’s lack of
fanaticism on this issue made him suspect, though his outspokenness in
the face of official sanction gave him a heroic aura. Last year the
Norwegians awarded him the Bjornson Academy Prize for protection of
freedom of expression. In his speech at Bilgi University last year,
he told the largely Turkish audience, "We want this land; not to take
it away but to lie under it!"

uny

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

17-Year-Old Ogun Samast Pleaded Guilty to Dink Killing

PanARMENIAN.Net
22.01.2007 13:16 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The suspect in the assassination of Agos daily
editor Hrant Dink was caught in Samsun 32 hours after the shooting,
when his father reported him to the police. On Saturday evening,
January 20, the lead suspect for Hrant Dink’s assassination, Ogun
Samast, was captured by gendarmarie with the murder weapon on him,
while traveling from Istanbul to Hopa. Ahmet Samast, who works as a
cleaner at the Pelitli municipality, went to the police after seeing
his son’s image on TV, and reported him. The police took Ogun under
custody, as well as his close friend Yasin Hayal and six others. In
2004 Hayal was tried for setting a bomb at a McDonald’s in Trabzon. As
a part of a detailed investigation, police are checking 32 computers at
the internet cafe the suspect used to visit. In the first interrogation
session, Samast confessed to the assassination, reports Zaman.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Open Democracy, UK
Jan 22 2007

My life as a pigeon

Hrant Dink
22 – 1 – 2007

This article was published in the Armenian-Turkish newspaper "Agos"
on 10 January 2007. It was the last Hrant Dink would ever write; nine
days later, he was murdered outside the newspaper’s Istanbul office.

I did not at first feel troubled about the investigation that was
filed against me by the ªiºli public prosecutor’s office with the
accusation of "insulting Turkishness". After all, it was not the
first time to face this charge. I had been familiar with the
accusation because of a similar lawsuit filed against me in Urfa.

Over the last three years, I was being tried in Urfa for "denigrating
Turkishness" on the grounds of having stated in a talk I gave at a
conference there in 2002 that "I was not a Turk … but from Turkey
and an Armenian."

I was unaware about how this lawsuit was proceeding. I was not at all
interested. My lawyer friends in Urfa were attending the hearings in
my absence.

I was even quite nonchalant when I went and gave my deposition to the
ªiºli public prosecutor. I ultimately had complete trust in what my
intentions had been and what I had written. Once the prosecutor had
the chance to evaluate not just that single sentence from my
editorial – which made no sense by itself – but the text as a whole,
he would understand easily that I had no intention of "denigrating
Turkishness"; and this comedy would come to an end.

I was certain that a lawsuit would not be filed at the end of the
investigation. I was sure of myself. But, surprise! A lawsuit was
filed.

But I still did not lose my optimism.

So much so that on a television show that I joined live, I even told
the lawyer (Kemal) Kerincsiz who was accusing me "that he should not
get his hopes too high, that I was not going to be smacked with any
sentence from this lawsuit, and that I would leave this country if I
received a sentence." I was sure of myself because I truly had not
had in my article any premeditation or intention – not even a single
iota – to denigrate Turkishness. Those who read the entirety of my
collection of articles would understand this very clearly.

Hrant Dink was from 1996 the editor-in-chief and a columnist of the
Armenian-language weekly newspaper Agos in Istanbul. The paper aims
to provide a voice for the Armenian community in Turkey and to
further dialogue between Turks and Armenians.

On 19 January 2007, Hrant Dink was assassinated outside Agos’s
offices in Istanbul.

As a matter of fact, the report prepared by the three faculty members
from Istanbul University who had been appointed by the court as
experts stated exactly that. There was no reason for me to be
worried; there would certainly be a return from the wrongful path (of
the lawsuit) at one stage of the proceedings or the other. So I kept
asking for patience …

But there was no such return.

The weapon of sincerity

The prosecutor asked for a sentence in spite of the expert report.

The judge then sentenced me to six months in prison.

When I first heard about my sentence, I found myself under the bitter
pressure of the hopes I had nurtured all along the process of the
lawsuit. I was bewildered … My disappointment and rebellion were at
their pinnacle.

I had resisted for days and months saying: "just you wait for this
decision to come out and once I am acquitted, then you will all be so
repentant about all that you have said and written."

In covering every hearing of the lawsuit, the newspaper items,
editorials and television programmes all attributed to me a remark
that "the blood of the Turk is poisonous." Each and every time, they
were adding to my fame as "the enemy of the Turk." At the halls of
the court, the fascists physically attacked me with racist curses.

They bombarded me with insults on their placards.

The threats reached hundreds, hailing for months through phones,
email and letters which kept increasing day after day. I persevered
through all this with patience awaiting the decision for acquittal.

Once the legal decision was announced, the truth was going to prevail
and all these people would be ashamed of what they had done.

My only weapon was my sincerity. But the decision was made and all my
hopes were crushed. From then on, I was in the most distressed
situation that a person could possibly be in.

The judge had made a decision in the name of the "Turkish nation" and
had it legally registered that I had "denigrated Turkishness." I
could have persevered through anything except this.

According to my understanding, racism was the denigration by anyone
of a person they lived alongside with on the basis of any difference,
ethnic or religious, and there was no way in which this could ever be
forgiven.

It was in this psychological state that I made the following
declaration to the members of the media and friends who were at my
doorstep trying to confirm "as to whether I would leave this country
as I had indicated earlier".

"I shall consult with my lawyers. I will appeal at the supreme court
of appeal and will even go to the European Court of Human Rights if
necessary. If I am not cleared through any one of these processes,
then I shall leave my country. Because, in my opinion, someone who
has been sentenced for such a crime does not have the right to live
alongside the citizens he has denigrated."

As I voiced this opinion, I was emotional as always. My only weapon
was my sincerity.

A dark humour

But it so happens that the deep force that was trying to single me
out and make me an open target in the eyes of the people of Turkey
found something wrong with this press release of mine as well; this
time, it filed a lawsuit against me for attempting to influence the
court. The entire Turkish media had been given my declaration, but
what got their attention was what was written in Agos alone. And it
so transpired that the legally responsible parties in the Agos
newspaper and I began to be tried this time around for attempting to
influence the court. This must be what people call "dark humour".

Who, more than the accused, has the right to try to influence the
judiciary? But in this humorous situation, the accused is tried for
just such an offence.

"In the name of the Turkish state"

I have to confess that I had more than lost my trust in the concept
of "law" and the "system of justice" in Turkey.

How could I have not? Had these prosecutors, these judges not been
educated in the university, graduated from faculties of law? Weren’t
they supposed to have the capacity to comprehend (and interpret) what
they read?

But it so transpires that the judiciary in this country, as expressed
without compunction by many a statesman and politician also, is not
independent.

The judiciary does not protect the rights of the citizen, but instead
of the state. The judiciary is not there for the citizen, but under
the control of the state.

As a matter of fact I was absolutely sure that even though it was
stated that the decision in my case was reached "in the name of the
Turkish nation", it was a decision clearly not made "on behalf of the
Turkish nation" but rather "on behalf of the Turkish state." As a
consequence, my lawyers were going to appeal to the supreme court of
appeals; but what could guarantee that the deep force that had
decided to put me in my place would not be influential there either?

And was it the case that the supreme court of appeals always reached
right decisions?

Wasn’t it the same supreme court of appeal that had signed onto the
unjust decision that stripped minority foundations of their
properties? It had done so, moreover, in spite of the attempts of the
chief public prosecutor.

We did appeal and what did it get us?

Just like the report of the experts, the chief public prosecutor of
the supreme court of appeals stated that there was no evidence of
crime and asked for my acquittal; but the supreme court of appeals
still found me guilty.

The chief public prosecutor of the supreme court of appeals was just
as certain about what he had read and understood as I had been about
what I had written, so he objected to the decision and took the
lawsuit to the general council.

But what can I say: that great force which had decided once and for
all to put me in my place and had made itself felt at every stage of
my lawsuit through processes I would not even know about, was there
present once again behind the scenes. And as a consequence, it was
declared by majority vote at general council as well that I had
denigrated Turkishness.

A pigeon reflex

This much is crystal-clear: that those who tried to single me out,
render me weak and defenceless, succeeded by their own measures. They
managed, with the wrongful and polluted knowledge they injected into
society, to form a significant segment of the population whose who
view Hrant Dink as someone "denigrating Turkishness".

The diary and memory of my computer are filled with angry,
threatening lines sent by citizens from this particular sector, whose
numbers cannot easily be dismissed. (Let me note here that one of
these threatening letters was sent from the neighbouring city of
Bursa, which I found particularly disturbing because of the proximity
of the danger it represented; I therefore handed it to the ªiºli
prosecutor’s office, but have not been able to get a response to this
day.)

How real or unreal are these threats? To be honest, it is of course
impossible for me to know for sure.

What is truly threatening and unbearable for me is the psychological
torture I personally place myself in. "Now what are these people
thinking about me?" is the question that really bugs me.

It is unfortunate that I am now better known than I once was and I
feel much more the people who throw me that glance which says, "Oh,
look, isn’t he that Armenian guy?" And I reflexively start torturing
myself.

One aspect of this torture is curiosity, the other unease. One aspect
is attention, the other apprehension. I am just like a pigeon …

Obsessed just as much by what goes on my left, right, front, back. My
head is just as mobile … and fast enough to turn right away.

And here is the cost for you

What did the foreign minister Abdullah Gul state? The justice
minister Cemil Cicek?

"Come on, there is nothing to exaggerate about (Article 301 0f the
penal code). Is there anyone who has actually been tried and
imprisoned from it?"

As if the only cost one paid was imprisonment …

Here is a cost for you … Here is a cost …

Do you know, oh ministers, what kind of a cost it is to imprison a
human being into the apprehensiveness of a pigeon?… Do you know?…

You, don’t you ever watch a pigeon?

What they call "life-or-death"

What I have lived through has not been an easy process … And what
we have lived through as a family …

There were moments when I seriously thought about leaving the country
and moving far away. And especially when the threats started to
involve those close to me … At that point I always remained
helpless.

That must be what they call "life-or-death." I could have resisted
out of my own will, but I did not have the right to put into danger
the life of anyone who was close to me. I could have been my own
hero, but I did not have the right to be brave by placing, let along
someone close to me, any other person in danger.

During such helpless times, I gathered my family, my children
together and sought refuge in them and received the greatest support
from them. They trusted in me. Wherever I would be, they would be
there as well.

If I said "let’s go" they would go, if I said "let’s stay" they would
stay.

To stay and resist

Okay, but if we went, where would we go?

To the Armenian republic?

How long someone like me who could not stand injustices would put up
with the injustices there? Would I not get into even deeper trouble
there?

To go and live in the European countries was not at all the thing for
me.

After all, I am the kind of person who, if I travel to the west for
three days, I miss my country on the fourth and start writhing in
boredom saying "let this be over so I can go back". So what would I
end up doing there?

The comfort there would have gotten to me! Leaving "boiling hells"
for "ready-made heavens" was not at all right for my personality
make-up.

We were people who volunteered to transform the hells they lived into
heavens.

To stay and live in Turkey was necessary because we truly desired it,
and we had to do so out of respect for the thousands of friends in
Turkey who pursued a struggle for democracy and who supported us.

We were going to stay and we were going to resist.

If, however, we were forced to leave one day … we were going to set
out just as in 1915 … Like our ancestors … Without knowing where
we were going … Walking the roads they walked through … Feeling
the ordeal, experiencing the pain …

With such a reproach we were going to leave our homeland. And we
would go where our feet took us, but not our hearts.

Apprehensive – and free

I wish that we would never ever have to experience such a departure.

We have way too many reasons and hope not to experience it anyhow.

Now I am applying to the European Court of Human Rights.

How long this lawsuit will last, I do not know.

What I do know, and what puts me a little at ease, is that I will be
living in Turkey at least until the lawsuit is finalised.

If the court decides in my favour, I will undoubtedly become very
happy and it would mean that I would never have to leave my country.

>>From my own vantage-point, 2007 will probably be even a more
difficult year.

The trials will continue, new ones will commence. Who knows what
kinds of additional injustices I will have to confront?

While all these occur, I will consider this one truth my only
security.

Yes, I may perceive myself in the spiritual unease of a pigeon, but I
do know that in this country people do not touch pigeons.

Pigeons live their lives all the way deep into the city, even amidst
human throngs. Yes, somewhat apprehensive, but just as free.

ey/pigeon_4271.jsp

–Boundary_(ID_2imLZ107p+b3XQY 04s+/HA)–

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

IN MERUZHAN TER-GULANIAN’S WORDS, MANY OF INTELLECTUALS HAVE
FLIRTATIONS WITH AUTHORITIES, FEAR FOR FUTURE: HE HIMSELF, FOR EXAMPLE,
SYMPATHIZES WITH REPUBLICAN PARTY

YEREVAN, JANUARY 22, NOYAN TAPAN. An intellectual may have a political
orientation, but, many of them have a flirtation with the ruling wing
during the elections and become inappropriately superactive, Meruzhan
Ter-Gulanian, a writer, publicist, the editor-in-chief of the "De
Facto" magazine expressed such an opinion during the discussion on the
theme "The Intellectuals and Elections." Responding the intellectuals’
question why, however, the most part of intellectuals becomes an
instrument in the authorities’ hands, M.Ter-Gulanian responded:
"they do not stand the temptation, fear for the future and live
badly." "If an intellectual is an intellectual by birth, he is
of course opposing. He must see the right thing and speak about
it. And there is a problem under any stone among us," the speaker
is sure. In M.Ter-Gulanian’s words, the intellectual’s price rises
from election to election, and its implication is understandable:
an intellectual must be so much respected that is able to direct
the society and create public opinion. For example, Ter-Gulanian
himself sympathizes with the Republican Party but is not a member:
"memorable Ashot Navasardian and Vazgen Sargsian were my friends from
long ago," M.Ter-Gulanian emphasized, at the same time mentioning
that he also sees the negative phenomena existing in that party. For
example, in his words, first of all the party must get free of all
the "olygarches," and the country President, Robert Kocharian, must
gather all the olygarches and persuade them not to take part in the
parliamentary elections.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

EASY AND GO CARD HOLDERS MAY GET CALLS AND SHORT MESSAGES TO BLOCKED
CARDS

Yerevan, January 22. ArmInfo. From now on the holders of Easy and
GO cards will be able to receive calls and short messages even if
their cards are blocked for three months, reports ArmenTel. Formerly,
blocked card could not receive calls and messages.

The source says that ArmenTel has 480,000 cellular service subscribers.
However, it cannot say how many of them are Easy and GO subscribers.

"STATEMENT", IMPUTED TO ARMENIAN SPECIAL SERVICES, IS RESULT OF
HACKERS’ ACTIVITY

Yerevan, January 22. ArmInfo. A ‘statement", imputed to the Armenian
special services, which is placed on the site of the Public TV of
Azerbaijan, is a results of hackers’ activity, an uncalled retired
employee of the National Security Service of Armenia, told ArmInfo.

A "statement of Armenia’s Special Services" (on a blank with
Armenia’s Emblem) is placed on the site of the Public TV of Azerbaijan
().

In this "document", the Armenian special services allegedly "warn
the special services of Azerbaijan, saying that interferences by an
Azeri hacker into the state sites and mails of Armenia are lately
detected". "All this is done by one man. We have already specified
who exactly do this. We can declare the full name and photo of this
hacker. If it does not stop, we shall wipe out this guy. This is our
last warning", it is said in a sham "statement".

To note, a so-called "war of hackers" between Armenia and Azerbaijan
is not a new phenomenon. It has been lasting for 10 years already
with a varying success and is accompanied by campaigns in Mass Media
of the two countries.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress