Will Turkey learn from the tragic assassination of Hrant Dink? - Political Forum

NeverAgain · 01-20-2007, 01:47 PM

By Vahe Balabanian

On April 4, 1968 Martin Luther King was shot dead in the southern US city of Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a march of sanitation workers protesting against low wages and poor working conditions.

On January 19, 2007 Hrant Dink a prominent newspaper editor, columnist and voice for Turkey’s ethnic Armenians who was prosecuted for challenging the official Turkish version of the 1915 Armenian genocide, was shot dead as he left his office on a busy street in central Istanbul.

In 1986, Martin Luther King Day was established as a United States holiday. In 2004, King was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. He was known as a great public speaker. Dr. King often called for personal responsibility in fostering world peace. King's most influential and well-known public address is the "I Have A Dream" speech, delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Hrant Dink’s story still remains to be written in Turkey. According to Fatma Muge Gocek in her “In Memoriam: Hrant Dink, 1954-2007”, Hrant Dink’s unwavering belief in the fundamental goodness of all humans regardless of their race, ethnic origin, regardless of what they had personally or communally experienced; his unwavering vision that we in Turkey were going to one day be able to finally confront our past and come to terms with our faults, mistakes and violence as well as our so brandied about virtues; his unwavering trust that we all would manage to live together in peace one day.

It is now Turkey’s turn to demonstrate its greatness by making Hrant Dink Turkey’s Martin Luther King.

NeverAgain · 01-21-2007, 09:24 AM

The Turkish society both in Turkey and the Diaspora has now come face-to-face with the evil among themselves. By placating evil you feed the evil. Let the good in the Turkish society stand up against the evil.

All these hate towards people who want what is just their basic rights as humans. All these websites full of hate towards Armenians. All these denials.

The Turkish society unwittingly is paying the price for placating the evil among themselves.

Open up your society to free speech. Let people tell their stories of the past. The only insult to "Turkishness" is hiding the past.

You can play with numbers of victims, meeting of historians and what have you. The fact is that a thriving Armenian civilization of more than 3000 years old on their ancestral land in Turkey and which served the Ottoman empire, is no more.

Hrant Dink is victim 1,500,001.

How many victims before you realize and stand up against the evil among you?

NeverAgain · 03-03-2007, 05:41 PM

Is Turkey’s free speech beyond recovery?

“In the wake of the January assassination in Istanbul of prominent ethnic Armenian editor Hrant Dink, Turkey’s intellectual community is feeling under siege to a degree not experienced in decades.

A mass outpouring of dismay and revulsion when Dink was gunned down, illustrated by a funeral that drew tens of thousands of mourners, has given way to a powerful right-wing backlash. Shadowy nationalist groups have issued chilling threats against authors and thinkers who, like Dink, speak out against Turkey’s official denial that the mass killings of Armenians beginning in 1915 constituted genocide, or on the power of the Turkish military, or the status of minority Kurds.

As a result, novelists are canceling book tours, once-outspoken professors are maintaining a low profile, and crusading columnists like Magden wonder whether their words will wind up costing them their lives.

The man who temporarily stepped in for Dink has been afraid to put his name on the masthead of Agos, the bilingual Armenian Turkish newspaper his slain colleague edited.

“It’s a real climate of fear,” said Eugene Schoulgin, a board member of the writers group PEN, which together with other international organizations has been lobbying for repeal of Article 301, a provision in the Turkish penal code that makes it a criminal offense to “denigrate Turkishness.”

Many intellectuals had hoped that the brazen daylight shooting of Dink, who received a suspended sentence of six months in jail in 2005 over his views on the slayings of Armenians, would prove a catalyst for abolishing Article 301. Turkey’s curbs on freedom of expression are seen as a significant obstacle as the government seeks to advance the country’s bid for membership in the European Union.” Here.

Public_Enemy · 03-07-2007, 08:04 AM

Quote:

Will Turkey learn from the tragic assassination of Hrant Dink?

Yes, we already did learn that we should better track of it when US missed some thausands of weapons with the same brand in assassinations...

NeverAgain · 03-09-2007, 11:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Public_Enemy

Yes, we already did learn that we should better track of it when US missed some thausands of weapons with the same brand in assassinations...

The gun was just the instrument used. "Hrant was not killed only by the 17 year old, but was killed by the ones who condemned him as the enemy to the Turks. He was killed by those who made him suffer because of Article 301 in front of the courthouse doors, who did not have the courage to change Article 301, he was killed by the ones who called him to the Governor’s Office to threaten him instead of protecting him." Here.

Public_Enemy · 03-09-2007, 11:39 AM

He was killed by secret services who supply the guns I mentioned, 17 y.o. guy was just a toy. Same ppl killed Italian Priest, Constitutional Court Judge. Main target is weaken Turkey with internal endless debates and blames, push Turkey to a politically difficult situation in international area and getting concessions for the possible strike against Iran and stop possible Turkish military action against northern iraq. This murder, the bill on the senate , all of them are just tools to use that can be easily throw out when they get what they need , just like the armenians in 1915..

NeverAgain · 03-09-2007, 09:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Public_Enemy

... push Turkey to a politically difficult situation in international area and getting concessions for the possible strike against Iran and stop possible Turkish military action against northern iraq. This murder, the bill on the senate , all of them are just tools to use that can be easily throw out when they get what they need , just like the armenians in 1915..

Is Turkey being manipulated from inside by outside forces backed by some in the USA? Who are these forces and what is it that they need? Is this a theory of yours?

Public_Enemy · 03-10-2007, 01:46 AM

Well, Turkey's support is need both for strike or isolation of Iran.. Turkey's support is needed for keeping kurds alive when US would take its soldiers out.. I can count a lot of more key issue that Turkey is not willing to do..
Lets be honest, in Police investigation by serial number of guns, Austrian manufacturer of guns told that guns in the murder sold to USA, than a short period later USA announced that hundreds of same brand guns is missing in Iraq. Than the gun somehow appeared in a 17 y.o. guy's hand and killed Hrant Dink. 10 minutes after the murder a large organized group started to protest the state like they were very ready and waiting.. same brand guns used in constitutional court judge and Italian Priest murders again by some teenagers. Only teenagers arrested, cases were closed. I am clever enough and can not believe all these things happened by luck...

NeverAgain · 03-10-2007, 08:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Public_Enemy

Well, Turkey's support is need both for strike or isolation of Iran.. Turkey's support is needed for keeping kurds alive when US would take its soldiers out.. I can count a lot of more key issue that Turkey is not willing to do..
Lets be honest, in Police investigation by serial number of guns, Austrian manufacturer of guns told that guns in the murder sold to USA, than a short period later USA announced that hundreds of same brand guns is missing in Iraq. Than the gun somehow appeared in a 17 y.o. guy's hand and killed Hrant Dink. 10 minutes after the murder a large organized group started to protest the state like they were very ready and waiting.. same brand guns used in constitutional court judge and Italian Priest murders again by some teenagers. Only teenagers arrested, cases were closed. I am clever enough and can not believe all these things happened by luck...

It seems to work the other way too. "Some 60 percent of all U.S. military equipment destined for Iraq goes through the territory or airspace of Turkey, a Muslim ally and member of NATO. If this route to Iraq were restricted or closed entirely, the ability of the United States to effectively combat the insurgency and violent militias in Iraq would be impaired.

The Erdogan government could also come under domestic pressure to restrict U.S. use of the air base at Incirlik in southern Turkey to re-supply American troops in Afghanistan." Here.

Public_Enemy · 03-10-2007, 09:57 AM

Quote:

It seems to work the other way too. "Some 60 percent of all U.S. military equipment destined for Iraq goes through the territory or airspace of Turkey, a Muslim ally and member of NATO. If this route to Iraq were restricted or closed entirely, the ability of the United States to effectively combat the insurgency and violent militias in Iraq would be impaired.

Yes, it support my opinion, Turkey's support is vital and US should somehow guarantee this support.