Today's Zaman, IF THESE ACTIONS ARE NOT AN OUTCRY TO THE WORLD THEN THE WORLD IS DEAF AND POLITICS ARE HIGH ON THE AGENDA! Turkey Jan 19 2015 Hrant Dink commemorated on 8th anniversary of murder [BY ASSASSINATION] as calls for justice grow by ARSLAN AYAN / ISTANBUL

Thousands of people marched from Taksim Square to the headquarters of the Agos newspaper to commemorate slain Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, who was shot dead outside his newspaper's office in Å?iÅ?li, Ä°stanbul, on Jan. 19, 2007, on the eighth anniversary of his assassination. The large crowd gathered in Taksim at 1:30 p.m. on Monday and began to march to the Agos weekly headquarters in Å?iÅ?li, as they have done every year on Jan. 19 since Dink's murder. They march to express support for Dink's family and demand justice. Dink's family, friends and human rights organizations welcomed the crowd on the spot where Dink was shot dead in Ä°stanbul outside the office of Agos, the Armenian newspaper where he was editor-in-chief. Speaking to the crowd from the balcony of Agos, Murathan Mungan, a famous Turkish poet and author, stated that those who murder Dink actually murdered the voice of the peace of which they could not understand. `Hrant spoke a kind of Turkish and Armenian that they [who murdered him] somehow could not understand. He spoke the language of peace,' Mungan told the crowd. `One of the dreams of Hrant Dink was to see the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border because reopening the border would develop the two nations' relations and bring misunderstandings to an end. Reopening of the border would mean the opportunity to start over. Today, as well as remembering Hrant's memory, we will also remember his dreams and do everything to bring them to fruition,' Mungan added. Speaking to Today's Zaman just before the commemoration ceremony started, Dink's widow, Rakel Dink, stated that although it has been eight years without Hrant, justice has not yet been served. Rakel Dink also said that what keeps her strong is knowing that hundreds of thousands of people share her pain every year on Jan. 19 since her husband's murder. The parents of Berkin Elvan, a teenager who died after being hit by a teargas canister fired by the police during the Gezi protests of 2013, also attended Dink's commemoration ceremony and greeted the crowd that gathered outside the Agos headquarters. Hrant Dink's widow, Rakel Dink (3rd from L) walks with parents of Berkin Elvan and lawmakers from the CHP and the HDP. (Photo: Today's Zaman, Turgut Engin) Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Deputy Chairman Sezgin Tanrıkulu also participated in the march and spoke with the press following the ceremony in front of the Agos headquarters. Tanrıkulu stated that Dink was murdered during the reign of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), and therefore the government was guilty of negligence. `Unfortunately, instead of bringing this murder to light, the government is trying to lay its responsibility on others,' Tanrıkulu said in reference to the government's recent efforts to associate the Dink assassination with the faith-based Hizmet movement, which is inspired by the teachings of prominent Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen. Many at Monday's march wore badges and carried placards declaring `We are here Ahparig!, We are all Armenians. We will not forget.' Ahparig means `my brother' in Armenian. A woman looks out of a window near a banner marking the eighth anniversary of the killing of Hrant Dink in Ä°stanbul. The banner reads: "We are here, my brother. 8th year" (Photo: Reuters) Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was shot by a 17-year-old boy, Ogün Samast, on Jan. 19, 2007, in front of the Agos office, where he served as editor-in-chief. In January 2012, Samast was sentenced to 22 years, 10 months in prison by a juvenile court while a court ruled on life imprisonment for Yasin Hayal on charges of instigating the murder. Another suspect, Erhan Tuncel, was acquitted of murder charges. In May 2013, the Supreme Court of Appeals overturned the court's original ruling, which dismissed the existence of an organized criminal network in the case. The lower court, which found no evidence that a terrorist organization was involved in Samast's assassination of Dink in 2007, had acquitted the suspects of claims that they had formed a terrorist organization. The court did, however, say they were guilty of forming an illegal and armed organization to commit a crime, prohibited under Article 220 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK). Today's Zaman, Turkey Jan 18 2015 'Eight years have become a hundred' Only days after this newspaper was launched with great hopes of advancing Turkey's sui generis "glasnost" and democratization -- the date was Jan. 16, 2007 -- we all found ourselves in the worst kind of nightmare ever imaginable. On Jan. 19, the news hit us like a thunderbolt that Hrant Dink, our dear colleague and a main driving force for taking Turkey gently by the hand to face its dark past, was assassinated by a gunman in broad daylight, in front of the newspaper, Agos, he had built. The price he paid for his many messages urging Turks and Armenians to listen to each other, to build bridges by taking huge risks, as it were, was to make himself a target of all the indocibility and sheer enmity of those who either do not want to heed his advice or simply get doves like him out of the way. Eight years of unbearable pain and grief have passed since that dark, grey day. The judicial process launched was slowly left to rot, while those who were behind this apparently premeditated organized crime were emboldened, decision after decision in the courts, and encouraged to believe they could enjoy the same sort of impunity others in the state apparatus had. (Have no illusions and make no mistake: In all of the court cases launched during the Justice and Development Party [AKP] rule, the number of those found guilty of crimes against humanity, say summary executions or others, was zero.) Meanwhile, the Dink family was left to face one humiliation after another. As a result of a typically "a la Turka black-out," every day that has passed since then, every single day, Hrant was murdered again, and again. And again. This was what I feared the most. When I attended the first court hearing of the murder, I had enough "data" to lose all faith that any outcome would reflect justice. I have absolutely none today, either. Why? Because the lawyer of the Dink family tells us that we are facing a murder that is the result of a "joint agreement" between various elements of the state apparatus. The state of Turkey has never, ever, allowed its staff to be held accountable for wrongs committed, however horrible they may be. Eight years ago, this newspaper was launched in the general mood that it would change things, but today when the AKP embraces the role of being a party at one with the state, this trial will simply be more leverage in manipulating infighting and never satisfy the conscience of the public. Otherwise, this year would be a perfect opportunity, as optimists have said, to honor Hrant and his legacy. It would be a year for Turkey to rise with the image of a "new" country, where justice, at last, has an impact. "Not only eight years have passed, but a hundred," wrote Dink's beloved Agos in an editorial the other day. "Jan. 19, 2015 is the eighth anniversary of Hrant Dink's assassination. But for us, this is also the beginning of the centennial anniversary of the death march the Armenian intellectuals were forced to take from Ä°stanbul on April 24, 1915. That year is the history of the annihilation of the Anatolian Armenians and, in some areas, their Assyrian, Chaldean neighbors." As of today the fact of the matter is that the mood of Armenians in Turkey about 2015 is only gloom. The process of bringing closer two nations -- and the diaspora -- is left only to tiny pockets of civil society, while Ankara is busy distributing funds to some of its pro-government think tanks to find ways not to deliver a proper message of remorse for the horror of 1915. Neither central nor local authorities seem to be engaged in activities of reconciliation. One example is utterly telling: An exhibition organized by the Ä°stanbul Metropolitan Municipality on the centennial of World War I depicts Ottoman Armenians as "traitors" and Greeks as "draft dodgers." What's worse than anything else, President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an's recent invitation to his Armenian counterpart, Serzh Sargsyan, to commemorate World War I in Gallipoli on the very day of April 24 -- he added that we should all mind the "significance of the date" -- will not only deepen Turkey's "precious solitude" but also have a contagious effect at home: the continuation of denial by copycat behavior and further demonization of all the peaceful efforts against it. Today's Zaman, Turkey Jan 18 2015 G-word not so easy GÃ`NAL KURÅ?UN Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jewish lawyer, first pronounced the word `genocide' in his book "Axis Rule in Occupied Europe" in 1944. He coined the term by combining `genos,' meaning `race, people' in Greek, and `caedere,' meaning `to kill' in Latin. According to Lemkin, the Armenian genocide was a school example of the crime. Today, most scholars on genocide and historians share this idea. It is still a discussion between Turkey and Armenia, including diaspora Armenians. In recent years, we have started to see an emphasized commemoration of the Armenian genocide on April 24. Since 2010, I've been involved in the commemorations. Police protected me and the group of intellectuals with whom I organized the 2010 commemoration in Ankara from ultra-nationalist protesters. It was the first time in my life that had happened. Assassinated Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink said in a 2006 documentary film titled "Screamers": `There are Turks who don't admit that their ancestors committed genocide. If you look at it though, they seem to be nice people. ... So why don't they admit it? Because they think genocide is a bad thing that they would never want to commit, and because they can't believe their ancestors would do such a thing either.' It is really not an easy word to say for an ordinary Turkish citizen, after all the negative propaganda they receive at school. When we say "genocide" in Turkey, `Jewish genocide" or "Holocaust' is automatically understood, as the Armenian genocide is non-existent according to our official history education. Therefore, we can use the term `G-word' for it, as it will require some more time to let go of the policy of denial. I have traveled to many countries in the world and wherever I go, I have faced this part of our history, for which I don't want to carry the burden. I have not done anything bad to anyone in my life and I have no relationship with the perpetrators of this crime. Dink believed the term had a political meaning rather than a historical one, and he was strongly critical of the Armenian diaspora's strategy of pressuring Western governments into officially recognizing the label of genocide. He believed that the diaspora Armenians should be able to live free of the weight of historical memory. Indicating that a show of empathy would have nothing to do with accepting or refusing the genocide, Dink called for dialogue, saying, "Turkish-Armenian relations should be taken out of a 1915-meter-deep well.' Besides this view, another culturocide, meaning `cultural genocide,' is going on. In MuÅ?, an Armenian church in the Kale neighborhood that had been deemed public property since 1923 was sold to the Söylemez family in 1958. The Söylemez family kept the property until 2012. Since there was no community to care the building, its roof was demolished. Only four walls are standing now. In 2012, a Cabinet decision declared the Kale neighborhood as an area of urban transformation, and expropriated the parcel on which the church was located. The family applied to the court and decided to suspend full demolishment until the final decision. In my opinion, Armenians have to stop talking about the issue. We -- Turks, Kurds and all Anatolians -- have to defend their rights. Whatever an Armenian talks about this issue, it is taken as a `victim defending their rights' and it has a minimal effect. I believe it would have a greater effect if the other side were to defend their brothers' and sisters' rights. On its eighth anniversary, I once again condemn the murder of Dink, and call on security forces to shed light on this assassination. We all know that it was not limited to a few 17-year-olds, especially after seeing a photograph of the assassin flaked by smiling Turkish police and a gendarmerie officer in front of the Turkish flag. Charles Aznavour says in his brilliant song `Ils sont tombés' (They Fell), `In that summer of strife, of massacre and war, their only crime was life, their only guilt was fear." Anadolu Agency (AA) January 17, 2015 Saturday Hrant Dink: A life dedicated to Turkey's democratization Friends of prominent journalist Hrant Dink remember the day of his murder eight years ago By Handan Kazanci ISTANBUL "I am an Armenian, a member of Turkey and an Anatolian to the marrow," once wrote prominent journalist Hrant Dink. Monday will mark the eighth anniversary of the day when the 52-year-old reporter's life was cut short. Dink was shot in the back by a teenage nationalist on an Istanbul street in broad daylight. The founder of the country's first Turkish-Armenian weekly newspaper "Agos," Dink - who hailed from Turkey's eastern province of Malatya - was an advocate of democratization and human rights. He had made a career of trying to open discussion on Turkey's taboo topics. "He was also one of the most important intellectuals of Turkey, he traveled around the country," says Turkish journalist Tuba Candar, who was also a personal friend of Dink. "He wasn't only talking about the Armenian issue but also other taboos of the time, such as Kurdish or headscarf matters," adds Candar who is the author of a major biography of Dink for which she interviewed 125 people. Dink was repeatedly prosecuted for "denigrating Turkishness" over his articles about Armenian identity and mass deportation of Armenians in 1915, which the country's diaspora and government still describe as 'genocide.' Turkey officially refutes this description. "In Turkey he was an Armenian, and in the Armenian world he was from Turkey," says Candar. Aydin Engin, one of Dink's friends who contributed to Agos as a columnist between 2002 and 2005, recalls the journalist's comment when he learned that the French parliament would adopt a bill which would punish those denying the 'Armenian genocide.' "Hrant said in a TV interview that 'I would stand in the heart of Paris and deny Armenian genocide and then come to Ankara and say the Armenian genocide is true. France would pull my arm while Turkey would the other and in that way they would mangle me but, as an intellectual, I have to say this.'" According to Engin, while Dink was dealing with prosecutions in Turkey, he was also accused of being a Turkish spy by the Armenian diaspora. The most important aspect of Hrant was his "diagnosis" on the Armenian issue says Candar: "He was saying that both communities were ill. Armenians still couldn't get over the 1915 trauma and they constructed the whole Armenian identity on it. And Turks were suffering from paranoia as they were thinking the recognition of genocide would result in compensation or giving some part of their lands to Armenians." "According to him, the only way to recover from this illness was to open the Turkish-Armenian border -- which is closed since 1993. If people encounter each other then they can begin to speak and try to solve their problems." "He was actually a lonely man within the Armenian community as well," Candar adds, suggesting a number of "breaking points" in Dink's life. First, says Candar, was the separation of Dink's parents. "He was abandoned along with his two other brothers after his parents' divorce and grew up in an Armenian orphanage," Candar says. His socialist background was another important element in his life, according to her. One of his best friends, Armenak Bakirciyan - who later changed his name to Orhan Bakir - was the leader of the Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist, an armed far-left group, and was killed during a conflict with Turkish police in 1980. In common with his friend, Dink also changed his name to a Turkish one - Firat, a reference to Turkey's renowned filmmaker Yilmaz Guney, who mainly portrayed working-class people's lives on film. Although he started to use his real name when he opened Agos, his name was still "Firat" on his identity card until the day he was killed. - 'We all saw him lying on the street' Eight years ago on Jan. 19, Dink's murderer, Ogun Samast - just 17 years old at the time - came to Istanbul from Turkey's Black Sea province of Trabzon. He later said that he had killed Dink for insulting "Turkishness." Candar recalls that day: "Nobody took away his body from the pavement for some time. We all saw him lying on the street and it was as if it was a bridge from today to 1915." Another of Dink's friends is Istanbul-born Armenian Sarkis Seropyan, 80, who is also a member of the founder group of Agos and worked for the weekly as a section editor. Seropyan remembers the day: "I heard three gunshots. Some of our colleagues opened the window and looked outside. I remember making a joke - 'whom did they shoot again?' without thinking that someone had really been killed. "As soon as I heard the screams I went out and I saw Hrant lying on the floor with a huge hole in his neck." "Hrant told us the whole Armenian issue when he was alive and it is as if he continued to explain with his dead body even after he was killed," Candar says. Journalist Engin was one of the organizers of Dink's funeral in Istanbul which brought together almost 100,000 people chanting "We are all Hrant, we are all Armenian," a milestone for Turkish citizens. "That day, a group of Armenians that were not really visible in daily life came to the service in traditional funeral or wedding costumes - black suits and white scarfs. "That was a turning point for Armenian society in Turkey. Young Armenians accepted Hrant as a flag - 'leader'," says Engin. Dink's murder energized people of Armenian heritage who were not previously connected to the Armenian community in Turkey. "They were working-class Armenians. They were there and responsible for the security at the funeral voluntarily. Those silent Armenians started speaking about equal citizenship and the relationship between Turkey and Armenia as Dink paved the way for young Armenians without being an enemy of Turks," adds Engin. Candar also recalls the year following Dink's funeral when around 30,000 people including numerous journalists, politicians and academics in Turkey signed a petition for the "I Apologize Campaign," for the "Great Catastrophe that Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915." -Unanswered questions There are three ongoing legal cases into Dink's murder. High-profile figures were questioned last month including former Istanbul vice governor Ergun Gungor, former Istanbul police chief Celalettin Cerrah and ex-Istanbul police intelligence unit chief Ahmet Ilhan Guler. Two police officers who were serving at Trabzon Police Department at time of the murder were arrested on Jan. 13. and are accused of "causing death due to negligence" and "professional misconduct." Reminding that on Jan. 23 Dink's murderer and others will be in court, one of the Dink family's lawyers, Hakan Bakircioglu, claims they were at the bottom of the structure that led the murder. Bakircioglu calls for the judging of this network's higher levels: "Some officials were aware of the murder... They deliberately did not take protective measures." In Dink's last article, which was published in Agos on Jan. 19, the day he was assassinated, he wrote about how he was "attacked by the fascists" in the corridors of a courthouse during his ongoing trials. "I am just like a pigeon, equally obsessed by what goes on my left and right, front and back. My head is just as mobile and fast. I may see myself as frightened as a pigeon, but I know that in this country people do not touch pigeons. Pigeons can live in cities, even in crowds. A little scared perhaps, but free."