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AGOS CALLS FOR DEFENDING LIVES, NOT BLOODSHED
Today's Zaman
March 2 2012
Turkey
Turkey's Agos weekly, a bilingual newspaper whose editor-in-chief,
Hrant Dink, was killed by an ultranationalist teenager in 2007 in what
now seems to be a murder sponsored by groups inside state security
forces, commented on a nationalist rally last weekend in İstanbul's
Taksim Square, where some of the participants held up overtly racist
signs targeting Armenians.
Dink, a Turkish-Armenian journalist, was killed outside the Agos
offices in broad daylight a few days after he wrote an article implying
he feared for his life.
Last Sunday a group gathered in Taksim to commemorate the victims of
the Khojaly massacre where 613 civilians were killed by Armenian
soldiers in 1992. Some of rally's participants, however, held
threatening and racist signs. A parliamentary commission is now
investigating those who were seen with racist signs, including one
that read "You are all Armenians, you are all bastards," a reference
to the hundreds of thousands of people who marched in İstanbul holding
signs that read "We are all Armenians," after Dink's assassination.
Agos, in an appeal that was published on its front page on Friday,
referred to another sign that read "Do not stay silent in the face of
Armenian lies." The sign refers to the 1915 incidents, where hundreds
of thousands of Armenians were killed at the hands of the Ottomans.
Turkey says the massacres occurred due to wartime conditions, but
Armenia insists that the killings amounted to genocide.
The newspaper noted that 1915 and the Khojaly massacre were unrelated
events and that the calls fanning hatred against Armenians were
disrespectful to the victims of the Khojaly massacre, which for the
most part was ignored.
"Unfortunately, those who filled the square were gathered by their
hatred of Armenians instead of common grief," the daily said. "Come,
let's defend life and not blood," the newspaper also remarked. "Life
is a right that we all have. We will be able to stand together proudly
in that square one day and we will be able to feel each other's pain.
We want to see that day, and we can only create that day together.
Come, let's find life in each other."
Today's Zaman
March 2 2012
Turkey
Turkey's Agos weekly, a bilingual newspaper whose editor-in-chief,
Hrant Dink, was killed by an ultranationalist teenager in 2007 in what
now seems to be a murder sponsored by groups inside state security
forces, commented on a nationalist rally last weekend in İstanbul's
Taksim Square, where some of the participants held up overtly racist
signs targeting Armenians.
Dink, a Turkish-Armenian journalist, was killed outside the Agos
offices in broad daylight a few days after he wrote an article implying
he feared for his life.
Last Sunday a group gathered in Taksim to commemorate the victims of
the Khojaly massacre where 613 civilians were killed by Armenian
soldiers in 1992. Some of rally's participants, however, held
threatening and racist signs. A parliamentary commission is now
investigating those who were seen with racist signs, including one
that read "You are all Armenians, you are all bastards," a reference
to the hundreds of thousands of people who marched in İstanbul holding
signs that read "We are all Armenians," after Dink's assassination.
Agos, in an appeal that was published on its front page on Friday,
referred to another sign that read "Do not stay silent in the face of
Armenian lies." The sign refers to the 1915 incidents, where hundreds
of thousands of Armenians were killed at the hands of the Ottomans.
Turkey says the massacres occurred due to wartime conditions, but
Armenia insists that the killings amounted to genocide.
The newspaper noted that 1915 and the Khojaly massacre were unrelated
events and that the calls fanning hatred against Armenians were
disrespectful to the victims of the Khojaly massacre, which for the
most part was ignored.
"Unfortunately, those who filled the square were gathered by their
hatred of Armenians instead of common grief," the daily said. "Come,
let's defend life and not blood," the newspaper also remarked. "Life
is a right that we all have. We will be able to stand together proudly
in that square one day and we will be able to feel each other's pain.
We want to see that day, and we can only create that day together.
Come, let's find life in each other."