Author: Kamalian Hagop

Armenian National Committee – San Francisco Bay Area
51 Commonwealth Avenue
San Francisco, California 94118
Phone: 415.387.3433 Fax: 415.751.0617
[email protected]
PRESS RELEASE

Friday, January 23, 2007

Contact: Armen Carapetian
Tel: (415) 948-7091

BAY AREA ARMENIAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY OUTRAGED OVER DINK ASSASSINATION

— Funeral services to be held on Tuesday in Istanbul, Turkey
— Armenian editor shot to death in Istanbul for publicizing the Armenian
Genocide
— "The real murderers are in the Governor’s office," says Turkish professor
in S.F.

SAN FRANCISCO – The Bay Area Armenian American community gathered for
requiem services on January 21 and public gatherings over two days to
express its grief and outrage over the assassination of Hrant Dink, the
Armenian newspaper editor shot dead in front of his office in Istanbul,
Turkey on Friday. Thousands of mourners and demonstrators are expected at
Dink’s funeral on Tuesday, January 23.

The editor had faced a succession of government criminal prosecutions, under
a law prohibiting "insulting Turkishness," and had received personal death
threats for his publications about taboo subjects in Turkey, including the
Armenian Genocide.

"The real murderers are in the Governor’s office," said Prof. Taner Akcam
who addressed the Armenian American community at an event Saturday evening.

Akcam, a professor of History at the University of Minnesota, is a Turkish
citizen, who was the first Turkish academician to write about the Armenian
Genocide in 1991.

Over the past two days many inside and outside of Turkey have expressed
strong suspicion that the government authorities were behind the killing.
Regarding the Turkish Prime Minister’s statement of dismay after the murder,
Akcam said, "We don’t need his crocodile tears. This was a culmination of an
ongoing campaign against Hrant by the Turkish deep state."

"The press, government, military…they all bear responsibility for his
murder," said Akcam, pointing to the severe laws against free speech and the
extreme nationalistic atmosphere which permeates Turkey. "It was no
accident. This time, Hrant was chosen as a target. He was targeted because,
believe me, he was Armenian."

Akcam told the crowd about Dink’s recent summons to the Istanbul Lt.
Governor’s office, where he said he was warned to contain his writing,
because "there were many crazy young men on the streets." A 17-yr old youth
fitting the description of the murderer was arrested on his way to Trabzon
on the Black Sea, carrying the gun and white cap witnesses had described the
assailant was wearing at the time of the murder.

After a requiem service on Sunday, the Bay Area Armenian National Committee
(ANC) held a public gathering at the Armenian Community Center, showing
slides of the murder scene and mass demonstrations in Istanbul as well as
video of Dink’s talk to Bay Area Armenians last year, in which he spoke of
the need for democracy and free speech in Turkey.

"Every day Hrant Dink was on the front lines of the battle for Armenian
Genocide recognition by the Turkish government," said Roxanne Makasdjian,
Chairperson of the Bay Area ANC. Having met with Dink in July, she told the
crowd that he had received many death threats and that the government was
opening another criminal case against him.

"We cannot allow his death to have been in vain. Here in the US, we must
call on our government to urge its ally, Turkey, to accept the truth of its
history, as the only means by which it can begin the process of
democratization," said Makasdjian.

In the US Congress, a resolution commemorating the Armenian Genocide is
expected to be introduced in the coming days. In previous years when similar
resolutions have been introduced, they have been prevented from proceeding
to a full vote, due to Turkish government lobby efforts.

San Francisco Representative and House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has been a
co-sponsor of previous resolutions, and pledged during her recent campaign
to continue her support for Armenian Genocide recognition.

PRESS OFFICE
Department of Communications
Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern)
630 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Contact: Jake Goshert, Coordinator of Information Services
Tel: (212) 686-0710 Ext. 160; Fax: (212) 779-3558
E-mail: [email protected]
Website:

January 29, 2007
___________________

SCREAMERS TELLS STORY OF GENOCIDE

The Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern) encourages all
Armenians to see the new documentary film, "Screamers," which explores why
genocides keep occurring.

The film is explicit and difficult, but its profound message is vitally
important. For the film to successfully reach a greater audience, it is
important that all Armenians turn out to see it when it is shown.

The film is currently playing in New York City, Arlington, VA; and Fresno,
CA. For details visit the film’s website:

The documentary travels from the Armenian Genocide, to the Holocaust, to the
killing in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Darfur. In the film, genocide is seen
through the eyes and music of the Grammy award-winning rock band "System of
a Down," whose members are all grandchildren of Genocide survivors.

As the band tours the world and touches on the locations and stories of
genocide in the last century, the film follows the personal story of the
lead singer’s grandfather, a 96-year old survivor of the Armenian Genocide.
The personal stories of tragedy are augmented by Harvard Professor Samantha
Power.

The film also targets the problem of genocide denial, with specific
reference to the Turkish government’s on-going campaign to stop discussion
of the Armenian Genocide.

— 1/29/07

A.G.SARGSIAN: "ROBERT KOCHARIAN IS RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERYTHING THAT
WILL TAKE PLACE IN ARMENIA DURING ELECTIONS"

YEREVAN, JANUARY 25, NOYAN TAPAN. Aram Sargsian, the Chairman of
the Democratic Party of Armenia excludes the existence of agreement
between the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) and "Bargavach Hayastan"
(Prosperous Armenia) party, two political forces controlled by
President Robert Kocharian and Defence Minister Serge Sargsian
and the fact of the coming parliamentary elections results’ being
predeterminated. The Democratic Party Chairman stated at the January
25 press conference that he would be happy if those two forces unite
as, it would be found out as a result that the "Bargavach Hayastan"
party is not a new political force." A.Sargsian mentioned that if
the pro-ruling forces were headed by one person during the 2003
parliamentary elections, the situation has changed at present. In
his words, not the opposition but a clash among pro-ruling forces
may become a cause for a possible force majeur situation during the
parliamentary elections. In the Democratic Party Chairman’s words,
R.Kocharian is responsible for everything that will happen during the
nearest months in Armenia "as he founded this system, he sponsored
it and he must reap the fruits." A.Sargsian stated that the getting
stronger influence of the outer factor on the innerpolitical situation
is a result of the complementary policy being carried out by the
country head. He mentioned that Russia, having big interests in the
region is interested in keeping today’s authorities. The U.S. which
allocated 6 mln dollars for holding the elections in Armenia also has
its goals. In the Democratic Party Chairman’s words, 70%-75% of the
country population either is not oriented or will not participate
in the coming elections. In his opinion, in these conditions the
opposition may unite and make the people sure to make a choice not for
money but for other ideas. A.Sargsian mentioned that the Democratic
Party will have active participation in the parliamentary elections,
but it is not clear yet with what forces it will cooperate. In his
words, the Democratic Party of Armenia has good relations with the
"Constitutional Right Union," "National Re-Birth" party and the
People’s Party of Armenia.

Perviz Shahbazov: Ilham Aliyev’s meeting with Angela Merkel is of great importance

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Jan 23 2007

[ 23 Jan. 2007 14:27 ]

Azerbaijani Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador to Germany
interviewed by the APA

– How do you appreciate the activity of the Azerbaijani embassy in
Germany in 2006? What can you say about the plans of the embassy?

– 2006 was very successful from the point of view of expansion of
relations in political, economic, cultural and other spheres between
Germany and Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani President visited Germany in
September last year and participated in International Bertelsmann
Forum. Besides, we can mention Foreign Minister’s visit to Germany,
political and security consultations of the Deputy Foreign Ministers
from the point of view of development of bilateral political
dialogue. A number of events were realized last year for the
development of economic relations. Among them we can mention
Azerbaijani Economic Development Minister’s visit to Germany, the
visit of the delegation composed of German businessmen to Azerbaijan,
Azerbaijan’s participation in the International Tourism Exhibition
held in Berlin and international exhibition on new technologies held
in Hanover etc. The embassy carried on propaganda for establishing
direct relations between Azerbaijani and German companies to
strengthen German investments in Azerbaijan. As to the cultural
cooperation, I would like to note that Azerbaijani Culture Ten-day
was held in Berlin, Mainz, Stuttgart and Frankfurt am Main in October
last year. Azerbaijani art figures gave concert, exhibition of young
Azerbaijani artists was held, Azerbaijani books for the first time
were demonstrated in famous Frankfurt Book Fair. As a result of
negotiations 2008 is declared "Azerbaijani Culture Year" in Germany
and various events are planned to be held.

– What is the level of the relations between Azerbaijan and Germany,
and are you satisfied with it?

– The relations between the two countries are improving dynamically.

There is exists active political dialogue between the countries,
economic and cultural relations are developing. There is a great
potential for further development of our relations. Azerbaijan pays
great attention to the broadening of relations with Germany, one of
the leading states of the European Union and world. Therefore the
embassy pays special attention to the recognition of Azerbaijan in
Germany, informing the society of the Azerbaijan’s truths.

– What meetings will be held and what documents are planned to be
signed within President Ilham Aliyev’s visit to Germany in February?

According to the information the president will be accompanied by the
delegation representing economic organizations. Is business forum
expected within the visit?

– As is known, President Ilham Aliyev will visit Germany in February
this year. Some official meetings are expected in the frame of his
visit. The meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel has great
importance for us. As we know, Germany will chair EU during the first
term of 2007 and G8 within the year. Germany has declared that it
will try to activate New Neighbourhood Policy. That is why it is very
important for Azerbaijan to cooperate with Germany, because
Azerbaijan has aims at integrating to the structures that newly
joined to New Neighbourhood Policy and close cooperation with
Euro-Atlantic structures. Azerbaijan-Germany business forum is
expected to be held in the frame of the visit. Generally, German
businessmen are mostly interested in non-oil sector of Azerbaijan. It
includes infrastructure, tourism, engineering industry, product
industry and some others.

– What do Azerbaijanis mostly do in Germany?

– Most of Azeris living in Germany are engaged in construction,
product industry, tourism, public catering and so on.

– Does the embassy keep in touch with Azerbaijani Diaspora and what
problems do our people have? Do Azerbaijanis, that introduced
themselves as the representatives of other nations but did not
achieve their goals, appeal to our embassy and what about their
number?

– There is great Azerbaijani community in Germany. There are
Azerbaijanis that moved from Turkey and Iran a long time ago and also
Azerbaijani citizens. The embassy has close relations with
Azerbaijanis living in this country and in case that they face any
problem; we take necessary measures in this sphere. European
Azerbaijanis Congress which acts in Berlin cooperates with the
embassy. The embassy implements joint cultural projects with
Azerbaijani societies. Recently we held a big ceremony dedicated to
World Azerbaijanis solidarity day where over 350 Azerbaijanis and our
German friends took part in. Azerbaijani Diaspora organizations are
expected to participate in the Azerbaijani culture years to be
celebrated in Germany. Department working with the foreigners
sometimes appeal to our embassy, and ask to define the citizenship of
the people that are supposed to be Azerbaijani citizens. The embassy
sends the questionnaire to relevant bodies of Azerbaijani and informs
German side about the results. Sometimes Armenian-born people
introduce themselves as Azerbaijani for getting permanent asylum. The
embassy immediately informs the relevant bodies after getting needed
information about the person. /APA/

Armenian Assembly of America
1140 19th Street, NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: 202-393-3434
Fax: 202-638-4904
Email: [email protected]
Web:

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 24, 2007
CONTACT: Christine Kojoian
E-mail: [email protected]

ARMENIAN ASSEMBLY MOURNS LOSS OF LEADING ARMENIAN ISSUES SUPPORTER
SARKIS ACOPIAN

Washington, DC – The Armenian Assembly deeply mourns the loss of Sarkis
Acopian, a longtime supporter and respected leader within the Armenian
community, who passed away on January 18 in Easton, Pennsylvania.

"Mr. Acopian was a distinguished community leader and we will always
remember and admire him for his commitment and dedication to Armenia,
especially his generous assistance during the Assembly’s earthquake
relief efforts in the late 1980s," said Board of Trustees Chairman
Hirair Hovnanian. "We extend our condolences to his family."

Following the devastating earthquake in 1988, Acopian donated over $1
million towards to the Assembly’s earthquake relief efforts. The
following year, he led an Assembly delegation to Armenia aboard his
corporate plane to discuss earthquake rehabilitation efforts. The
delegation, which included then Board of Directors Chairman Jirair
Haratunian and Board Members Robert A. Kaloosdian and Milton Gelenian,
conferred with government officials and health and immigration officials
to determine, among other things, the scope of post-earthquake medical
needs. The group also toured the future site of the Assembly’s housing
construction factory in Gyumri, which was established to provide
construction materials for housing units and public facilities in the
earthquake zone.

The Assembly delegation was also the first Diaspora group to meet with
the leaders of the Karabakh Committee, whose members eventually became
part of Nagorno Karabakh’s first government.

Acopian was a very modest and civic-minded individual who believed in
giving back to society. In addition to the Assembly, he made numerous
donations to national and international causes including, The Acopian
Engineering Center at Lafayette College, the Acopian Center for
Conservation Learning at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary and The Acopian Center
for Ornithology at Muhlenberg College.

In his ancestral home, Acopian built the St. Hagop Armenian Church in
Gyumri in honor of his granddaughter Ani. A second church, St. Mesrob,
is currently under construction in Erebuni. Acopian also endowed the
environmental education program at the American University of Armenia
and assembled a team of ornithologists in Armenia and the U.S. to work
towards publishing a field guide on the birds of Armenia. The book,
entitled "A Field Guide to Birds of Armenia," was published in 1997 in
hopes of introducing the newly independent former Soviet republic to the
idea of environmental conservation.

His sense of gratitude to his adopted country also played a major part
in the construction of the St. Sarkis Armenian Apostolic Church in
Charlotte, North Carolina in memory of his mother, Dr. Arax Acopian. In
the nation’s capital, Acopian gave the single largest personal donation
for the construction of the World War II Memorial with a gift of $1
million. He also made a major gift to the Clark University
Kaloosdian/Mugar Chair in Armenian Genocide Studies and History.

Acopian’s family members also share his commitment to Armenia and
Armenian-American issues. His son Jeff and his wife Helen were among the
first participants of the Assembly’s Mission to Armenia. Their nephew,
Alex Karapetian, carried on his family’s commitment to the Armenian
cause by serving as the Assembly’s Grassroots Assistant Director in
Washington. Earlier Karapetian participated in the Terjenian-Thomas
Assembly Internship Program at the encouragement of the Acopian family.

Born in Tabriz, Iran in 1926, Acopian came to the United States in 1945
to study engineering at Lafayette College in Easton, PA. After earning
his degree, he designed and manufactured the first ever solar radio
which eventually led him to establish Acopian Technical Company, a
successful power supply business which continues to operate in his
hometown and Melbourne, Florida.

Acopian is survived by his wife of 59 years, Bobbye; two sons: Greg and
his wife Karen, and Jeff and his wife Helen; six grandchildren and two
great grandchildren. He is also survived by a younger sister Mariam
Bradley of Plainview, NY and predeceased by his parents Dr. Grigor and
Dr. Arax Acopian and by a sister, Eleanora Ordjanian of Flushing, New
York.

Funeral services will be held at noon on Friday, January 26th at St.
Vartan Armenian Cathedral in New York City followed by a graveside
service at 11:30 am on Saturday, January 27 at Easton Cemetery. Flowers
may be sent to the church or memorials may be made to an organization of
choice.

The Armenian Assembly of America is the largest Washington-based
nationwide organization promoting public understanding and awareness of
Armenian issues. It is a 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt membership organization.

###

NR#2007-015

Photograph available on the Assembly’s Web site at the following link:

/2007-015-1.jpg

Caption: Mr. Sarkis Acopian of Easton, Pennsylvania

He believed his love for his country would save him: Murdered editor Hrant
Dink did more than most dared hope to bring Turkey – and his two peoples –
towards peace

FIACHRA GIBBONS

The Guardian – United Kingdom
Jan 22, 2007

The last time I met Hrant Dink he joked that he was "not dead
yet". The next time I saw him was on television last Friday, murdered
outside the newspaper he founded in Istanbul. Even with all the death
threats, he believed his clear love of his country would save
him. "They don’t shoot pigeons here." Dink was an orphan. He was
given up by his parents when he was still a small boy. To be an
orphan in Turkey, a country where family is all, is a heavy burden.
To be an Armenian orphan in Turkey is to simultaneously carry the
genocide and the troubled consciences of all you walk among.

Dink spent his life trying to create a new family that could
accommodate people like him and the millions more who do not fit into
the officially prescribed straitjacket of what it means to be a
Turk. He tried to rid his country, and his two peoples of the
nightmare of the death and the denial dividing them.

It is all the more painfully tragic that in his own death he has been
accepted into the Turkish family in a way that he never quite achieved
during his lifetime.

Dink’s murder has shamed Turkey, just as his prosecution under the
preposterous article 301 of the new penal code, which created the
offence of insulting Turkishness, shamed it. All the more so that the
judges – heroes in their own heads no doubt of Turkey’s cherished
secular order – had to horribly distort an article he wrote berating
the Armenian diaspora, somehow claiming that his words poisoned the
blood of Armenians with hatred of Turks, in order to somehow convict
him.

What rankled most with him to the end was that he had been held by the
state to have insulted Turks. "I wish he could hear the thousands of
people lining up all the way from Osmanbey to Harbiye shouting, ‘We
are all Hrant, we are all Armenian!’" a friend of his told me on the
night of the killing.

Only those who know Turkey can possibly imagine the emotional charge
released by those last four words. Just as they will have winced at
what the boy who shot him in the back of the head shouted as he ran
away: "I have killed the gavur [the infidel, the foreigner]." Ogun
Samast, the 16-year-old who has apparently now confessed to killing
Dink, comes from Trabzon, where last spring, after the publication of
the Muhammad cartoons, a boy of 15 walked into a church and shot an
Italian priest in the back of the head.

Trabzon and the whole Black Sea coast was one of the last places in
Turkey where Islam took hold. But, like eastern Anatolia, it was also
a place where many thousands died in the chaos of the Ottoman empire’s
collapse, mainly Greek-speaking Pontian Christians massacred for
aiding the Russian invaders.

Later, faced with flight to Georgia or forced migration to Greece,
many apparently converted to Islam to remain. Even in Turkey, a place
often unhappy in its own skin, there is a particular unease about the
past on the Black Sea. Many of its inhabitants are acutely aware that
a few generations ago they may have been neither Turkish nor Muslim –
like the ancestors of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime
minister.

This often shows itself in self-consciously insistent nationalism or
religious observance, two seemingly irreconcilable credos that have
found common cause as Europe has shown ugly signs of Islamophobia and
Turcophobia and, in the past few months, Turkey’s EU accession process
has stalled.

No one would be angrier than Dink if his death were to give succour to
Austrian or French politicians determined to keep Turkey out of
Europe. He never saw acceptance of the Armenian genocide as a
prerequisite for entry into Europe any more than it was for the
Austrians, French, Poles, Lithuanians or Hungarians to face up to
their part in the Holocaust.

When the French parliament made denial of the Armenian genocide a
crime last year, he even offered go to Paris to be the first to defy
the new law for the sake of free speech. For him it was not just a
matter for Turkey’s conscience, or about rebuilding relations with its
neighbour, Armenia, although all of this was important; most of all it
was for the mental health of Turks. It was Turkey – and not the gavurs
or the Armenian diaspora, who kept bringing it up – that was really
suffering.

Turkey has a long way to go to be at peace with itself, but a process
has begun. And it has already gone further than anyone might have
dared to dream a decade ago, thanks in good part to Hrant Dink. He did
not just preach generosity, bravery and forgiveness, he lived it.

Which is why he walked out of his office on Friday rather than hide
away as if he had anything to be ashamed of. His newspaper is called
Agos, after the Armenian word for opening a furrow for planting. It is
for others now to stand at his plough.

Fiachra Gibbons is writing a book on the Ottoman legacy in Europe
[email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected])

PanARMENIAN.Net

There Were Too Many People In Turkey Who Wanted to Kill Hrant Dink
20.01.2007 16:44 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ There were too many people in Turkey who wanted to
kill Hrant Dink, stated political scientist Alexander Iskandaryan, the
Director of Caucasian Media Institute, to the PanARMENIAN.Net
journalist. In his words, Dink was a man of strong views, and those
things he said, did not like some people not only in Turkey, but
sometimes in Armenia.

`I knew him over 10 years and can say he was a very brave
person. Hrant Dink clearly realized he could be killed. Last time he
told me about it last year. He clearly realized what he was doing and
also knew that too many people wanted to kill him, which happened in
the end,’ Iskandaryan said.

Agence France Presse — English
January 19, 2007 Friday

Prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist shot dead in Istanbul

by Nicolas Cheviron

Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, targeted by nationalist
circles and the courts for his views on the 1915-18 killings of
Armenians, was shot dead outside his office here Friday in what was
immediately branded a "political assassination".

A local official announced that three people were detained in
connection with the murder as thousands took to the streets in
protest and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged to quickly
catch the perpetrators of what he termed "an attack on freedom of
thought".

"There are three people in custody. We are very close to solving the
case. We have definitive evidence," Istanbul governor Muammer Guler
told reporters here, the Anatolia news agency reported.

The 53-year-old Dink was shot at the entrance of his newspaper’s
offices in the busy Sisli district, on the European side of the city,
an employee of the weekly Agos newspaper which he edited told AFP.

The NTV news channel said Dink died instantly after being shot in the
head and in the neck.

Police were looking for a man in his late teens, wearing a denim
jacket and a white cap, NTV said, while the Anatolia news agency
reported that witnesses saw a man in his late twenties running from
the scene.

Dink’s lawyer, Erdal Dogan, told the CNN-Turk news channel that his
client had been receiving threats, but had not requested police
protection.

In his latest column dated January 10, Dink wrote of a "considerable
group of people who see me as an enemy of the Turks," saying he had
received letters "full of anger and menace."

Some 5,00O protestors — many carrying red carnations and pictures of
Dink with the inscription "My dear brother" in Turkish, Armenian and
English — gathered outside the Agos offices, demanding justice.

"We are all Armenians, We are all Hrant Dink," chanted the
protestors.

In the capital Ankara, about 700 people — mainly trade unionists and
human rights activists — held a peaceful sit-in in central Kizilay
square, Anatolia reported.

The spiritual leader of Turkey’s 80,000 Armenians, Patriarch Mesrob
II proclaimed a 15-day period of mourning for Dink.

Erdogan strongly condemned what he termed a "heinous murder" and said
he had told his justice and interior ministers to investigate the
killing and sent them to Istanbul.

"I stress that the attack on Dink is an attack on us all — on our
unity, our integrity, our peace and stability," Erdogan said. "This
is an attack against freedom of thought and our democratic way of
life."

Justice Minister Cemil Cicek pledged to expend every means to throw
light on the murder, underlining that the investigation would be
pursued "in secrecy for a while" in order to properly collect all the
evidence and catch suspects.

The United States, the European Union and Armenia also condemned the
murder which Dink’s colleagues and friends said was politically
motivated.

"This is clearly a political murder. It is a planned and premediatetd
killing," said Derya Sazak, a columnist for the liberal daily
Milliyet.

Dink, a well-known and respected journalist, drew the wrath of the
judiciary and Turkish nationalists with his remarks on the World War
I killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire, which preceded the
Turkish republic.

But he always insisted that he was a citizen of Turkey and would
never work against his country.

In July, the appeals court upheld a suspended six-month sentence
against him for an article he wrote on the collective memory of the
massacres.

His conviction was the first under the infamous Article 301 of the
new Turkish penal code, which deals with "insulting Turkishness" and
has since been used to prosecute several other intellectuals, to
widespread criticism from the European Union which Turkey is seeking
to join.

Dink was on trial in another freedom-of-speech case, in which he
risked up to three years in jail, on charges of attempting to
influence the judiciary in an editorial criticizing his first
conviction.

In September, an Istanbul prosecutor filed yet another suit against
him, seeking three years for describing the killings as genocide in
an interview.

Married with three children, Dink had been Agos’s editor since its
launch in 1996.

Public debate on the Armenian massacres has only recently begun in
Turkey, often sending nationalist sentiment into a frenzy.

Armenians claim up to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered and
want the massacres to be internationally recognized as genocide.

Turkey rejects the genocide label and argues that 300,000 Armenians
and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians took
up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia, and sided with invading
Russian troops as the Ottoman Empire crumbled during World War I.

New York Times, NY
Jan 20 2007

Armenian in Istanbul

By LORRAINE ADAMS
Published: January 21, 2007

There is a moral putrescence peculiar to the denial of genocide. Yet
denial’s practitioners are all around us. The Sudanese government
calls the butchers of Darfur `self-defense militias.’ The Iranian
president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, dismisses the Holocaust as `myth.’ In
an official government report, the Turkish Historical Society
describes the slaughter of more than a million Armenians between 1914
and 1918 as `relocations’ with `some untoward incidents.’

Skip to next paragraph

Marian Banjes

THE BASTARD OF ISTANBUL
By Elif Shafak.

360 pp. Viking. $24.95.

Readers’ Opinions
Forum: Book News and Reviews
It seems obvious that the Turkish novelist Elif Shafak smells the rot
in her homeland. Indeed, `The Bastard of Istanbul,’ her sixth novel
and the second written in English, recently led to a suit by the
right-wing attorney Kemal Kerincsiz, who declared that Shafak’s
Armenian characters were `insulting Turkishness’ by referring to the
`millions’ of Armenians `massacred’ by `Turkish butchers’ who `then
contentedly denied it all.’ Earlier, Kerincsiz sued Turkey’s
best-known novelist, the Nobel Prize-winner Orhan Pamuk, for telling
a Swiss journalist that `30,000 Kurds and one million Armenians were
killed in these lands, and nobody but me dares to talk about it.’

Pamuk’s isolation is less than complete and his stance not entirely
daring. Kerincsiz and others have brought about 60 similar cases, a
majority concerning the Armenian genocide, and not one has resulted
in prison time. Kerincsiz, who helps organize demonstrations to
coincide with the court appearances of the writers he sues, opposes
Turkey’s bid for membership in the European Union, and he
acknowledges that these circus displays of his country’s censorship
laws aid his cause.

Although the international literary community has rallied behind
Pamuk and Shafak, both of whose cases were dismissed, there has been
decidedly less clamor about the suits brought against
Turkish-Armenian journalists, underpaid translators and long-standing
political activists. At the same time, Turkish nationalists have
charged that Pamuk’s Nobel and Shafak’s place in the spotlight have
had more to do with their persecution than with the merits of their
work.

The critical consensus on Pamuk is undeniably strong, that on Shafak
far less substantial. Most of her novels have not been reviewed in
the West, and with the recent uproar she has become more discussed
than read. In this new book, she has taken on a subject of deep moral
consequence. But is the work worthy of its subject?

`The Bastard of Istanbul,’ set in the United States and Turkey,
concerns two families – one Turkish, living in Istanbul, and the
other Armenian, divided between Tucson and San Francisco. (Shafak is
currently an assistant professor of Near Eastern studies at the
University of Arizona; she commutes between Tucson and Istanbul.)

An ardent feminist, Shafak populates her novel with women. It’s no
surprise, then, that Mustafa, the Turkish man at the center of the
plot, is more of an enigma than a character. First seen in a Tucson
supermarket as a college student, he falls for and soon marries a
young American who has recently divorced her Armenian husband. Not
only does his new wife enjoy offending her Armenian in-laws with a
Turkish spouse, she also relishes the idea that her baby daughter
will have a Turkish stepfather.

That child, Armanoush, endures shuttle parenting, moving between her
mother in Arizona and her father and his relatives in San Francisco.
Shafak sketches these Armenians flatly and superficially, as
uniformly and fiercely anti-Turk – and as overprotectively fretful
about beautiful and bookish Armanoush. Instead of exploring her roots
with her own survivor family, she makes contact with
Armenian-Americans online, joining a chat group dedicated to
intellectual issues, including combating Turkish denial of the
massacres. At 21, Armanoush somewhat illogically decides to travel to
Istanbul, where none of her Armenian relatives remain. She stays with
her stepfather’s Turkish family while keeping her mother and father
ignorant of her whereabouts.

The family this young woman encounters is a confusing swirl of four
generations of women that includes a great-grandmother suffering from
Alzheimer’s disease; a disapproving, distant and angry grandmother;
her four daughters and one great-granddaughter. The eldest daughter
is a self-styled Muslim mystic; another is a high-school teacher, and
yet another a schizophrenic who lives in a fantasy world. The
youngest runs a tattoo parlor and has an illegitimate daughter, the
bastard of the novel’s title.

Keeping all these women straight isn’t crucial since they function
chiefly as adornments of Shafak’s magic realism, the inhabitants of a
supernatural personal history. We learn, for example, that the men of
the family for `generations after generations … had died young and
unexpectedly,’ a contrivance that explains why Mustafa is living in
Tucson and has never returned to Istanbul to see his four sisters.

Armanoush’s visit, which begins as an impulsive spurt of tourism,
unexpectedly leads to a far darker explanation of her stepfather’s
exile. (Those who wish to read the novel and not have the ending
spoiled should stop here.) She inadvertently helps reveal Mustafa’s
secret – that he raped his youngest sister, that this sister covered
up for him and that her child is a product of incest. It takes the
mystic sister, with the help of an evil djinni, to bring about both
her brother’s death and his daughter’s discovery of her origins.

Mustafa’s crime is meant, presumably, to symbolize Turkey’s
long-denied history of genocide. But the fate of the Armenians is by
no means obscure. In fact, scholars around the world have documented
it with precision. Unlike the members of the Armenian diaspora,
Mustafa’s sister willfully hides the circumstances of her rape –
although it’s difficult to believe that this miniskirted,
high-heeled, radically irreverent woman would have engaged in such
subterfuge.

When the novel’s skeleton finally dances out of its flimsy closet,
it’s clear that although Shafak may be a writer of moral compunction
she has yet to become – in English, at any rate – a good novelist. A
valuable moment in the klieg lights has been squandered, but Shafak,
still in her 30s, has more than enough time to grow into a writer
whose artistry matches her ambition.

Lorraine Adams, a writer in residence at the New School and the
author of a novel, `Harbor,’ is a regular contributor to the Book
Review.

The Age, Australia
Jan 20 2007

Editor’s murder a blow to democracy

Nicholas Birch, Istanbul
January 21, 2007

A JOURNALIST who was a prominent member of Turkey’s Armenian
community has been murdered in Istanbul in an attack the Prime
Minister described as an attempt to destabilise the country.

Hrant Dink, 53, a Turkish citizen of Armenian descent, was shot from
behind at the entrance of Agos, the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly
newspaper he edited.

A large crowd gathered as police cordoned off the area on Friday.
Workers at the newspaper, including Mr Dink’s brother, were weeping.
Three suspects were later detained.

"A bullet was fired at freedom of thought and democratic life," said
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. Mr Dink had gone on trial several
times for speaking out about the mass killings of Armenians by Turks.
He had received threats from nationalists who saw him as a traitor.
He was a public figure in Turkey and, as the editor of Agos, one of
its most prominent Armenian voices.

In his last newspaper column, Mr Dink said that he had become famous
as an enemy of Turks and that he had received threats against him.

He said he had received no protection from authorities despite his
complaints. "My computer’s memory is loaded with sentences full of
hatred and threats," he wrote.

Established in 1996, Agos was the fruit of his belief that only
dialogue could resolve the bitter memories left by the mass murder of
Ottoman Armenians during the First World War.

An outspoken critic of Turkey’s continuing denial that the events of
1915 amounted to genocide, Mr Dink was equally opposed to
international attempts to politicise the issue.