Posted on 01/23/2007 8:43:03 AM PST by Valin
Istanbul, 23 Jan. (AKI) - Tens of thousands of people have taken part in a funeral march in Istanbul on Tuesday to commemorate prominent Armenian Turkish journalist Hrant Dink who was shot dead in the city last Friday. A calm crowd gathered along the march's 80-kilometre route from the downtown offices of Dink's Agos newspaper to the Balikli Armenian cemetery in the city's Yenikapi district, where he was due to be buried. Mourners dressed in black carried placards that read "We are all Hrant Dink" in Turkish and Armenian. Occasional rounds of applause could be heard, Turkish news agency Cihan said.
At the start of the march, mourners crammed into the square outside the Agos newspaper offices, where Dink's coffin had been brought from the Armenian Virgin Mary Church. Dink's wife, Rakel, addressed those gathered and repeated an earlier request to the crowd not to shout slogans or tout placards during the funeral procession. She bade her husband farewell saying: "We will be reunited in heaven," Cihan reported. After her speech, Dink's family released white doves - a symbol of peace.
Turkish foreign minister and deputy premier Abdullah Gul, state ministers and Mehmet Ali Sahin, were due to attend the funeral as well as several EU officials. The murder of Dink, a moderate proponent of the rights of Turkey's Armenian ethnic minority has raised EU concerns on freedom of speech in Turkey.
Police have arrested a 17-year-old boy in connection with the shooting of Dink, 54, who was hit last Friday afternoon by four bullets in front of the offices of Agos, the bilingual Armenian-Turkish newspaper he edited.
The suspect, Ogun Samast, a native of the conservative city of Trabzon, was picked up on a bus 32 hours after the murder when his father recognised him from TV images and notified the police. He has confessed to Dink's murder and said he did not regret it.
Samast was held in the Black Sea port of Samsun goether with several other suspects before being returned to Istanbul for further questioning. Cihan reported that Istanbul security chief Celalettin Cerrah said he has asked for the suspects' detention to be extended. Under Turkish law, as Samas is a minor, he may only initially be held for four days.
One of the suspects is a friend of Samas, Yasin Hayal, who spent 11 months in jail for a 1994 bomb attack at a McDonald's restaurant in which six people were injured. Hayal and Samas spoke on the phone before the shooting, Cihan reported.
Turkey's Hurriyet newspaper said on Monday that during police interrogation Hayal stated he had given Samast the gun with which he shot dead Dink, and some money. Samast told police he decided to commit the murder after he read some some of Dink's statements on the Armenian genocide on the Internet. Samast also said he tried to reach Dink before the murder and talk to him but failed and then killed him after Friday prayers.
Dnink was one of Turkey's most prominent Armenian voices and wrote many controversial articles about the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War I.
Didn't Turkey give Dink a (suspended) prison sentence for telling the truth about the Genocide? I am sorry to say I know very little about Hrant Dink - he seems to have been "a man valiant for truth".
I always appreciate your comments on all things Turkish.
So just as you guys in the USA have judges in all sorts of levels passing all sorts of sentences agreeable or not, so does the system in Turkey contain justices of all sorts who resemble their interpretations of the law.
If you are interested in what he wrote, then check the web site of his paper AGOS and read the archives. Some of them have English translations.
He was an artistic editor who wrote misinterpretable things that were right there on the edge. Enjoyed by some, misunderstood due lack of capacity and despised by others.
Lack of capacity is a state that many people are in: here, there, and everywhere.
Here are the pictures:
http://www.milliyet.com.tr/content/galeri/yeni/goster.asp?galeriid=789
Thank you. Very moving photos.
I only pray that he didn't die in vain, that his work will be carried on.
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