Was Armenian Journalist's Assassination Sanctioned By The Turkish Government?

The Stiletto ^ | February 5, 2007 | The Stiletto

[theothercheek]

Make no mistake about it: The photos and TV footage of Turks lamenting the January 19 assassination of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in Istanbul were nothing more than PR damage control, to show the European Union that Armenians and other Christian minorities in the 99.8 percent Muslim country do not have to fear persecution – or worse.

But truth always trumps PR, and the Belfast Telegraph reports: "Less than a fortnight after huge crowds thronged the streets of Istanbul at the funeral of the murdered Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, chanting, ‘We are all Armenian,’ Turkey … showed another, more sinister face."

When not participating in PR stunts, Turks most emphatically do not consider themselves Armenian. At a soccer game in Adana over the weekend, fans "unfurled banners reading ‘We are all Mustafa Kemal’ and ‘We are all Turkish!,’" reports columnist Oktay Eksi for the Turkish paper, Hürriyet. And to rally the fans, cheerleaders "took up the well-known chant of ‘Those who don't stand up are Fenerbahce fans!’ and turned it instead into ‘Those who don't stand up are Armenians!’"

But Nationalism is not confined to rowdy soccer fans. Turkish TV broadcast a video of Dink’s assassin, Ogün Samast, posing proudly behind a Turkish flag flanked by police officers. Turkish newspaper Today’s Zaman describes the images (video link; English subtitles/voiceover unavailable):

Samast was seen in the video holding out a Turkish flag and posing with officers, some of them in uniform. Behind Samast was a poster with another Turkish flag carrying the words of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the revered founder of modern Turkey: "The nation's land is sacred. It cannot be left to fate." A voice in the video can be heard asking if the quote on the poster can be arranged above the suspect's head. Someone also tells Samast to fix his hair.

Recall that Dink’s assailant shouted, "I killed the Armenian" after pumping several bullets into his victim’s body. The arresting police officers clearly treat him as though he is a national hero, not a despicable criminal.

Considering that Turkish courts had previously convicted Dink under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code of "denigrating Turkishness" – and the local prosecutor refused to investigate the scores of death threats he received as a result, or to place him under state protection – what are the odds that this Nationalist sympathizer will be convicted?

The Stiletto is betting, slim to none, as Nationalists have infiltrated law enforcement, the judiciary and the government at every level. Robert Fulford, a columnist writing for Canada’s National Post explains:

"[T]he Deep State" [is] a shadowy network of judges, police, army officers, bureaucrats and crime bosses, all of whom claim to defend Turkey 's honour. They argue, with the hysterical ferocity of people who no longer believe their own lies, that the genocide story was invented by Turkey 's enemies.

The Deep State 's opinions may eventually be drowned by more convincing arguments; but for now it's too powerful to be ignored. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan … apparently decided that unfairly prosecuting a few writers wasn't too high a price for appeasing his county's irascible nationalists. …

The Deep State stands behind Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, created to maintain public ignorance by making criticism of Turkey a crime. Article 301 was the basis of charges … of insulting Turkishness brought in 2005 against Hrant Dink, a journalist who belonged to Turkey 's small Armenian minority. He was convicted but given a six-months suspended sentence. In nationalist eyes, that certified him as an enemy. …

Once the centre of great power, Turkey may never have entirely recovered from the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in the 1920s. History has left Turks with incoherent national memories of pride and shame. Their long, painful rise toward modernity demonstrates why a peaceful and prosperous future requires a reasonably honest understanding of the past.

Alas, Turks are not an introspective people. As schoolchildren are taught that Turks are a superior race, Nationalism is the inevitable result. Nationalists prefer to kill the messenger – in this case, Hrant Dink – than to accept the message that the civilized world demands Turks to acknowledge the irrefutable historical fact that their ancestors are genocidal murderers. They owe it to history. And to the Armenians.

NOTE: In case I did not put all the links in correctly, this is the second item in a feature titled, "The Daily Blade" and is sandwiched between an article titled "Iraq Was Supposed To Become Like The USA - But The Reverse Happened: Part II" and an article titled "Why Hillary Ain't Hilarious."

[Not now, Not ever!]

Bump, Bttt, As a bookmark.