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Novelist calls on Turks to break silence on Armenian killings

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  • Novelist calls on Turks to break silence on Armenian killings

    Agence France Presse -- English
    January 18, 2008 Friday 6:17 PM GMT


    Novelist calls on Turks to break silence on Armenian killings

    ISTANBUL, Jan 18 2008


    The Booker-prize winning novelist Anrundhati Roy called on Turks
    Friday to break the silence over the World War I-era massacre of
    Armenians.

    Roy was in Istanbul as part of tributes to mark the first anniversary
    of the murder of writer Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian campaigning
    newspaper editor shot dead by an unemployed member of a fringe
    ultra-nationalist group.

    "I haven't come here to fill the silence that surrounds in this
    country the events that took place in Anatolia in 1915. That is for
    you to do. That is what Hrant Dink tried to do and therefore paid
    with his life," the Indian writer said during a lecture at Bogazici
    University.

    "Obviously, the assassination was meant both as a punishment for
    Hrant and as a warning to others in this country who might have been
    inspired by his courage."

    Dink campaigned for reconciliation between Turks and Armenians, but
    on the basis of Turkish recognition that the massacre of Armenians
    between 1915 and 1917 constituted genocide.

    The total tally of those killed is disputed, with Armenians putting
    it at more than 1.5 million and Turkey saying between 250,000 and
    500,000.

    Roy told supporters that the killing of Dink had backfired --
    highlighting rather than silencing the issue of the massacres.

    "Hrant has been silenced but those who celebrate his murder should
    know that what they did was counterproductive. Instead of silence it
    has raised a great noise. Hrant's voice has become a shout that
    cannot be silenced again."

    Dink, who had been given a six-month suspended sentence by a Turkish
    court for his views, was nominated on Monday by the International
    Press Institute as one of its "heroes of world press freedom."
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