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  • Thousands to rally on anniversary of divisive Turkish murder

    Agence France Presse -- English
    January 18, 2008 Friday 1:47 AM GMT


    Thousands to rally on anniversary of divisive Turkish murder

    by Nicolas Cheviron
    ISTANBUL, Jan 18 2008


    Thousands are expected to gather in Istanbul Saturday in memory of
    Armenian-Turk campaigning editor Hrant Dink, on the first anniversary
    of his hate-slaying outside his weekly newspaper's offices.

    The grassroots tribute to the Agos founder, gunned down by an
    unemployed ultra-nationalist on January 19, 2007, comes days before
    Turkish parliament reform of a controversial law against insulting
    'Turkishness' that some hold responsible for his murder.

    Already the subject of a series of prosecutions, Dink was given a
    six-month suspended sentence in October 2005 after a court ruled that
    one of his pieces described Turkish blood as dirty. An appeal was
    also rejected.

    He had called on Armenians to reject symbolically "the tainted part
    of their Turkish blood" and "turn now towards the new blood of an
    independent Armenia, the only thing capable of freeing them from the
    weight of the diaspora".

    Over and above the actual sentence, the judgment "confirmed," in the
    words of his killer's lawyer, that Dink was "a traitor to the
    fatherland," handing him on a plate to ultra-nationalists with
    reprisal in mind.

    "There is no doubt that article 301 has contributed to a targeting of
    intellectuals and, for some, like Dink, the paying of the heaviest
    price," said Erol Onderoglu of press rights campaigners Bia2.

    Sentences were imposed in only six out of 55 cases last year, and not
    one of those involved time behind bars.

    But that doesn't make the law any less harmful, according to Ragip
    Zarakoglu, a publisher being tried himself for releasing a book which
    classed as "genocide" the 1915-17 massacres of Armenians, a claim
    denied by Turkey.

    Countries like France, Argentina, Greece and Russia, where
    descendants live, have formally recognised Armenian genocide, but
    Turkey argues the killings of hundreds of thousands of natives under
    the Ottoman Empire -- virtually clearing their heartland -- was
    related to the First World War.

    "This article (301) is used to trigger (Turkish) nationalist
    campaigns and in this way to force intellectuals to censor
    themselves," said Zarakoglu.

    He cited a new-found "silence" on the part of other high-profile
    writers in Orhan Pamuk, the 2006 Nobel prize winner for literature
    whose trial on charges of "insulting Turkishness" was dropped last
    year, as well as French-born author Elif Safak.

    The amendment being voted on next week is intended to define more
    precisely what article 301, or insulting Turkishness, is meant to
    cover.

    It will also reduce the maximum prison term from three to two years
    and introduce the need for the justice minister to sign off
    prosecutions -- in Zarakoglu's eyes, a move that threatens judicial
    independence.

    It also risks, he believes, creating a two-tier system whereby
    lesser-known individuals may be prosecuted free from the prying eyes
    of the media or the European Union while "stars will be untouchable
    because the ministry will refuse to sanction a trial in order to
    avoid the hassle".

    For Etyn Mahcupyan, current director of Agos, the changes should,
    nevertheless, be sufficient to halt a good number of cases.

    "We can guess that with all these new little details, they will be
    unable to open the majority of cases," he said.

    Asked about article 301's influence on the death of his friend, the
    journalist preferred to point to other factors.

    "We know full well that there is a small group of judges and
    prosecutors (the extremist self-styled Union of Lawyers) who are very
    nationalist and statist, and who act apparently in a deliberate
    fashion," he added.
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