Global Voices Online
Jan 19 2015
Eight Years After His Politically Motivated Death, Hrant Dink Still
Cannot Rest in Peace
Posted 19 January 2015
On January 19, 2007, Hrant Dink, an Armenian journalist, was murdered
by 17-year-old Ogün Samast, an ultra-nationalist from the Turkish city
of Trabzon. After a trial spanning half a decade, Samast was sentenced
to nearly 23 years in jail in 2011.
Dink was viewed by many as a leader of the Armenian community in
Turkey, that pressed for a recognition of the 1915 Armenian Genocide,
while also being a proud citizen of Turkey.
Supporters of Dink, who edited the bilingual Turkish-Armenian
newspaper Agos, believe that the murder was an organized act, which
included officials in the upper echelons of the government. In order
to answer these claims, another trial was held in Istanbul lasting
five years. Despite all the evidence compiled by Dink’s legal team,
only one other man faced an aggravated life sentence for soliciting
the murder, while 19 suspects were acquitted of being members of a
terrorist organization. The verdict was met by public outcry as the
Turkish state was once again shown incapable of shining a light on
political murders.
In May 2013, the Istanbul court’s verdict was found to be
unsatisfactory by Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals in Ankara. This
court argued that the government had bungled and eliminated evidence
that could lead to the arrest of officials, and ordered a retrial.
Nationalism’s Nest in the Turkish State
The idea that nationalism is welcome in Turkey is nothing new, but,
the initial arrest of Ogün Samast was a particularly ugly sort of
confirmation of its pervasiveness: when taken back to the station
after being detained Samast posed for photos with police officers and
a Turkish flag.
Ogün Samast, assasin of Hrant Dink, and police taking a picture in
front of the Turkish flag after his arrest in Samsun, 2007. Widely
shared.
The five years following this arrest witnessed false statements from
different state officials, disappeared evidence, and a reluctance on
the part of officials to question and punish highly ranked officials.
Writing in 2012, just as a separate investigation into an
ultranationalist group — Ergenekon – believed to be plotting the
overthrow of the ruling Justice and Development (AKP) party was being
carried out very thoroughly, one blogger, Gün Zileli, railed against
the seeming hypocrisy of the situation:
Translation
Original Quote
Ogün Samast and couple of his friends were on trial for five years.
Hrant Dink’s friends and lawyers made an enormous effort to reveal the
instigators of the murder inside the state, their relationship [to the
killing], and the identities of the state and police officials who
organized the murder. Yet, both public prosecutors and the court
itself tried very hard to limit the case to people that had already
stood trial. For example, while the ‘Ergenekon case’ was widened to
the maximum in the name of ‘finding various connections’ and
[targeting] everyone opposed to the government, the Hrant Dink case,
was, with a conscious effort, limited only to the already prosecuted,
and the court decision itself obstructed anyone wanting to follow the
obvious connections.
Ogün Samast ve birkaç arkadaþý beþ yýl boyunca yargýlandýlar. Hrant
Dink’in arkadaþlarý ve avukatlarý, katillerin devlet içindeki
azmettiricilerini, iliþkilerini, cinayeti örgütleyen devlet ve polis
görevlilerini ortaya çýkartmak için beþ yýl boyunca büyük çaba
gösterdiler. Buna karþýlýk, Hrant Dink davasýnýn savcýlarý ve mahkeme
de, cinayeti sadece yargýlananlarla kýsýtlý tutmak için büyük çaba
gösterdi. Örneðin, “Ergenekon” davasý, “çeþitli baðlantýlarý bulmak”
adýna azami ölçüde geniþletilir ve bu davaya, hükümete muhalif herkes
sokulurken, Hrant Dink davasý, çok bilinçli bir çabayla, sadece
yargýlananlarla kýsýtlý tutuldu, ayan beyan ortaya çýkan baðlantýlara
gidilmesi bizzat mahkemenin kararlarýyla engellendi.
Nationalist sentiment surrounding the Hrant Dink case has been visible
on the street as well as in the courtroom. The day after his
commemoration last year, the website of Dink’s Agos newspaper was
hacked by nationalists who superimposed Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, a
powerful symbol of Turkish homogeneity. Police officiating the 2014
commemoration ceremony wore white berets, similar to the one Ogün
Samast had worn the day he murdered Hrant Dink. This year hateful
tweets appeared glorifying the murder and congratulating Samast.
January 19, 2014, Hrant Dink’s commemoration. Police wearing white
berets. Widely shared.
Hopes for justice, or just more political retributions?
The retrial has offered hope that important state officials might face
prosecution. So far Istanbul city’s then-commissioner Celalettin
Cerrah, deputy governor Erol Güngör, and the intelligence chief of
Istanbul’s police intelligence unit at the time of Dink’s murder,
Ahmet Ãlhan Güler, have all been summoned to court to testify.
On the day of Dink’s commemoration this year, Commisioner of Cizre
Ercan Demir, also turned himself in in Ankara.
But many fear the government is now using the retrial to prosecute
members of the so-called ‘parallel state’ Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdoðan believes is being supported by US-based scholar and
acrimonious political rival Fethullah Gülen, and support a purge of
the government.
Using the ‘cemaat’ term that refers to followers of Gülen, one tweep despaired:
They are trying to say that #HrantDink’s murderer is “cemaat”. They
are trying to wash away 12 years long AKP tyranny with “cemaat”. If
you buy it.
Agos’s headline for tomorrow [“This Case Does Not Fit with
‘Parallel’-2”) Anyone disagrees?
Indeed, Hrant Dink’s case does not quite fit in with the ‘parallel
state’ narrative, since Gülen and Erdoðan were seen as political
allies during this time. As Ümit Kývanç writes on the Riya Tabirleri
blog:
Translation
Original Quote
It is time for me to remind the whole government, especially the
president, of a truth they are trying to make us forget: While
[Gülen’s] armed bureaucrats were acting at the time, unlike today,
they did not consider themselves as members of a ‘parallel
organization’ in conflict with the government. Government [at the
time] perceived them as its own men as well.
Baþta cumhurbaþkaný, bu hükümetin özellikle unutturmaya çalýþtýðý bir
hakikati hatýrlamanýn tam da yeri burasý: Cemaat’in silahlý
bürokratlarý bu iþleri yaparken, þimdiki gibi, hükümetle kavga
halindeki bir “paralel yapý”nýn elemanlarý saymýyorlardý kendilerini.
Hükümet de onlara kendi adamlarý gözüyle bakýyordu.
January 19, 2015 is the eighth year since Hrant Dink’s death, while
2015 marks the 100th year of Armenian genocide.
Like the previous years, the walk started from Taksim and ended in
front of Agos, where he was murdered. Thousands have gathered at his
commemoration and demanded justice for his murder and recognition of
the Armenian genocide.
As was the case last year, people have come together under the
hashtags #HrantIcinAdaletIcýn (For Hrant, for Justice),
#FasizmeInatKardesimsinHrant (You are my brother in spite of fascism),
#BuradayýzAhparig (We are here my brother) and #HrantDink.
One of the most poignant tweets ahead of Dink’s commemoration focussed
on the journalist’s popular appeal to people of all creeds and
cultures living in Turkey:
He was one of the very rare ones that we all found meaningful and
created a real bond with. “We are all Hrant”
#Buradayýzahparig
#HrantIcinAdaletIcin