Remembering Hrant Dink

Thirty people gathered today outside the Turkish embassy in Helsinki to remember Hrant Dink and to put there candles for him.

The weather was as bad as last year. It was stormy, rainy and wind was 21 meter per second. All pictures which I took are bad. But this picture which a friend took of me is good.


LIKE publishing house remembered Hrant Dink by keeping his picture is the sale desk in their book shops in Helsinki. This picture is from their shop in Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma.

One year from the murder of Hrant Dink and the case is not clear

Turkish people were shocked on the 19th January last year when Hrant Dink, editor-in-chief of the Armenian magazine Agos, was shot dead in Istanbul. Since the dreadful years of the early 1990s journalists have not been murdered in Turkey despite there has been other political murders.

After the murder of Hrant Dink Turkish people made it clear that they do not accept return to this period of fear. Instead they want reforms. Thousands of people marched in the streets of Istanbul in the day of Dink's funeral. Columnists in daily newspapers demanded that the case must be examined to the deepest bottom. Almost no one believed that seventeen years old Ogün Samast had acted alone.

There were speculations in Turkish mass media that the murder was arranged by a Trabson network. Trabson is a town by the Black Sea. There were doubts about the involvement of Jitem, the intelligence service of the gendarmerie. Some pictures in internet upset Turkish people. In one of them Dink's murderer Samast hold Turkish flag and posed with policemen who were smiling. In another picture Veli Kücük, a previous chairman of Jitem, was with Alparslan Arslan, who murdered the top judge in Ankara one and half years ago.

But police came to the conclusion that a group of friends murdered Dink on their own initiative.

When there is any scandal connected to the state, first the Turkish mass media demands proper survey about the case, but usually the processing then cools down without any results.

So it happened also with the murder of Hrant Dink. In January 2007 it was the main news topic for several days in Turkish mass media. But when the trial against Samast and his "friends" started in July, the main stream newspapers made about it only small stories.

"We are all Armenians" slogans were forgotten quickly. But similar white caps as shooter Samast had used became popular in the streets of Turkish towns. This is a sign of anti-Armenian feelings.

Veli Kücük, the ex-chief of jandarma, felt so insulted about the implications targeted to him that he filed a court case against the family of Hrant Dink and their advocate and demanded 5500 euro compensation from them. This trial started in September in Istanbul.

Due to his articles in Agos magazine Hrant Dink had been accused by Article 301 of the Turkish penal code. This article criminalises denigration of Turkishness. During two and half years 120 Turkish intellectuals have got a prison sentence due to this article. All prosecutions have not led to a verdict. For example prosecutor removed the trial of Nobel prize winning author Orhan Pamuk.

The trial against Hrant Dink continued still two months after his death.
Only a few days before his death Hrant Dink had contacted the governor of Istanbul and told about the death threats he had received. He did not get any help. Now the situation is different. The state has arranged bodyguards for twenty journalists and writers. Orhan Pamuk is one of them.

This is only the first step in solving the problems of freedom of expression in Turkey. The most important issue is reform or abolition of Article 301. Also the European Union demands this.
During the anniversary of Hrant Dink's murder Turkish politicians have remembered the issue. Justice minister Mehmet Ali Sahin told at the end of December about innovations coming soon. But they are very small, for example the phrase "Turkishness" is to be replaced by "the state of the Republic of Turkey". But the change of a few words does not solve this problem.

And by the way, in addition to Article 301 there are at least fourteen other laws which give tools for the authorities to limit the freedom of expression. If Article 301 will be abolished, the present restrictions may not continue by using the other laws.

British discussion: Twin approach to the Kurdish question

Last year I visited England four times and during three journeys I was in the British Parliament in a Kurdish or Armenian meeting. I did not plan my journeys according to the seminars, but every time I went to London there seemed to be something important going on.

In picture: Mark Muller

Armenians have been talented for years in making lobby and now Kurds are learning the same skill.

There seems to be such understanding towards the Kurdish question in Great Britain what is missing in other European countries. Maybe it is the long war in Northern Ireland which has taught Britons to understand the many aspects of armed conflicts and especially the importance to end them. And of course the presence of British troops in Iraq increases public awareness to all issues in the region.

Lawyer Mark Muller is a hard-working man, a regular speaker in seminars.

Last June Muller said that there is a Kurdish entity in South Kurdistan.

"Turkish nationalists are right when they are afraid, they can not prohibit that a Kurdish state will be created", he believed.

Muller has practical approach towards the Kurdish question.

"In peace negotiations it is question about what helps, not about what is right or wrong", he said.
Despite the big problems Mark Muller had in June an optimistic attitude:

"We live now a very critical moment, but there is also a possibility for good seeds. Sometimes there is a solution and a new way of acting in the biggest crisis", he said in a seminar held in the British Parliament.

But Mark Muller was very serious in December in Brussels in the conference of the EU Turkey Civic Commission and spoke about the importance of critical planning until the beginning of May 2008.

He did not believe that there would be any purely political or military solution to the problem in Southeast Turkey. A twin approach is needed because there are many military and geopolitical aspects.

"The Kurdish issue in Turkey and the PKK issue are not identical despite they might be closely linked," he said. There are geopolitical aspects where PKK is not involved, like Turkey's relationship with Iraq and Iran. So these issues should be treated separately, he advised.

Mark Muller was again one of the speakers in a meeting in the British Parliament the 17th December. He explained how different AKP government is to previous Turkish governments and what opportunities this creates in the democracy development.

"The failure to move towards democracy is the biggest problem in Turkey. The Kurdish issue is only a reflection of this", he said.

"It is not question of Kurds on the one side and the Turks on the other side, or secularists against the islamists. People are targeting towards democracy. Turkey's democratization is much larger issue than only the Kurdish question", Muller explained.

Muller reminded that Britain has experience of complicated peace negotiations in North Ireland. This knowledge could be used for the benefit of Kurds.

Britain has its special responsibility to participate in the search of solution to the Kurdish question. It was one of the countries behind the Lausanne Treaty. If any country supports a declaration which claims that there is no Muslim minority when there is millions of such persons, the country must meet also the consequences.