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Cihan News Agency (CNA) - Turkey
January 13, 2013 Sunday
Hrant's Friends panel speakers highlight how minorities feel threatened
ISTANBUL (CIHAN)- A number of panelists who spoke as part of a two-day
symposium organized by Hrant's Friends to recall events that led to
the 2007 murder of Hrant Dink, editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian
weekly Agos, said on Sunday that minorities, including Armenian
citizens, feel threatened in Turkey because of a series of minor and
major attacks on them.
Hayko Bagdat, a member of the Armenian community and host of a
television show, said at the panel "Minorities Targeted: Cage Plot"
that before Dink's murder there had been systematic threats and
attacks against minority communities and now similar attacks continue
though on a minor scale.
Bagdat gave some recent examples causing fear among the Armenian
community: an elderly Armenian woman who was killed in Samatya and the
slaughter of a teacher who was not an Armenian but worked at an
Armenian school.
"Are these isolated events?" Bagdat asked. "Maybe they are in this big
city where murders happen every day, but if we have doubts, that means
that they are serious."
Among other disturbing examples, Bagdat also mentioned the murder of
Sevag Balikçi, a young man of Armenian descent who was killed while
serving in the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) as a conscripted private.
His death was initially believed to be an accident but was likely a
hate crime committed because of the victim's ethnic background,
according to new testimony from another private. Balikçi was shot dead
on April 24, 2011 -- the date the Armenian Diaspora has chosen to
commemorate the incidents of 1915 when hundreds of Armenians were
killed in the Ottoman Empire.
He also highlighted the Cage Operation Action Plan, allegedly prepared
by the Naval Forces Command, which sought to intimidate and
assassinate Turkey's prominent non-Muslim figures to put domestic and
international pressure on the government. The plan calls the killings
of Dink, Catholic priest Father Andrea Santoro and three Christians in
Malatya an "operation." An anti-democratic group within the Naval
Forces Command allegedly aimed at fomenting chaos in society with
those killings, but evidence showed that the plan failed when large
groups protested the killings in mass demonstrations in Turkey.
In 2010, an indictment regarding the Cage Operation Action Plan was
added to the case file on the 2007 Malatya murders, in which three
missionaries were brutally killed at a Christian publishing house.
Orhan Kemal Cengiz, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs in the
Malatya murder case, said at the same panel that there are pieces of
information that the public has about all those events, but it is hard
to put them together and see the whole picture.
Speaking about his own experience, he said that even he was being
targeted by a suspect in the murder case before he was put in prison.
"I was afraid because there was news circulating that I had a role in
the murders. All that had a chilling effect on the other lawyers in
the case," he said.
Cengiz also reminded that a suspect standing trial in the Malatya
massacre case told the court that the National Strategies and
Operations Department of Turkey (TUSHAD), the armed wing of the
Ergenekon crime network, is still active and continues to plot attacks
against non-Muslims.
In addition, he pointed out the revelation of a letter sent by an
anonymous writer to the National Intelligence Organization (MIT)
claiming that the Tactical Mobilization Group (STK) of the General
Staff was behind a number of assassinations, including an armed attack
on the Council of State in 2006, the murder of Dink and the Malatya
killings.
"The letter also claimed that the STK has three main branches: one in
the northern province of Trabzon, one in southern Hatay and the other
in the eastern province of Malatya," he added.
Journalist Ismail Saymaz, writer of the book, "Nefret/Malatya: Bir
Milli Mutabakat Cinayeti" (Hate/Malatya: A Murder of National
Consensus), said at the same panel that people should not blame the
"deep state" behind every act because the ruling Justice and
Development party (AK Party), which does not show enough political
will behind those serious murder investigations and even promotes
major suspects who hold official positions, is also a responsible
party in the big picture. He also said that anybody that is not a
male, Sunni Turk in Turkey does not feel as if they have full
citizenship rights.
From: A. Papazian
January 13, 2013 Sunday
Hrant's Friends panel speakers highlight how minorities feel threatened
ISTANBUL (CIHAN)- A number of panelists who spoke as part of a two-day
symposium organized by Hrant's Friends to recall events that led to
the 2007 murder of Hrant Dink, editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian
weekly Agos, said on Sunday that minorities, including Armenian
citizens, feel threatened in Turkey because of a series of minor and
major attacks on them.
Hayko Bagdat, a member of the Armenian community and host of a
television show, said at the panel "Minorities Targeted: Cage Plot"
that before Dink's murder there had been systematic threats and
attacks against minority communities and now similar attacks continue
though on a minor scale.
Bagdat gave some recent examples causing fear among the Armenian
community: an elderly Armenian woman who was killed in Samatya and the
slaughter of a teacher who was not an Armenian but worked at an
Armenian school.
"Are these isolated events?" Bagdat asked. "Maybe they are in this big
city where murders happen every day, but if we have doubts, that means
that they are serious."
Among other disturbing examples, Bagdat also mentioned the murder of
Sevag Balikçi, a young man of Armenian descent who was killed while
serving in the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) as a conscripted private.
His death was initially believed to be an accident but was likely a
hate crime committed because of the victim's ethnic background,
according to new testimony from another private. Balikçi was shot dead
on April 24, 2011 -- the date the Armenian Diaspora has chosen to
commemorate the incidents of 1915 when hundreds of Armenians were
killed in the Ottoman Empire.
He also highlighted the Cage Operation Action Plan, allegedly prepared
by the Naval Forces Command, which sought to intimidate and
assassinate Turkey's prominent non-Muslim figures to put domestic and
international pressure on the government. The plan calls the killings
of Dink, Catholic priest Father Andrea Santoro and three Christians in
Malatya an "operation." An anti-democratic group within the Naval
Forces Command allegedly aimed at fomenting chaos in society with
those killings, but evidence showed that the plan failed when large
groups protested the killings in mass demonstrations in Turkey.
In 2010, an indictment regarding the Cage Operation Action Plan was
added to the case file on the 2007 Malatya murders, in which three
missionaries were brutally killed at a Christian publishing house.
Orhan Kemal Cengiz, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs in the
Malatya murder case, said at the same panel that there are pieces of
information that the public has about all those events, but it is hard
to put them together and see the whole picture.
Speaking about his own experience, he said that even he was being
targeted by a suspect in the murder case before he was put in prison.
"I was afraid because there was news circulating that I had a role in
the murders. All that had a chilling effect on the other lawyers in
the case," he said.
Cengiz also reminded that a suspect standing trial in the Malatya
massacre case told the court that the National Strategies and
Operations Department of Turkey (TUSHAD), the armed wing of the
Ergenekon crime network, is still active and continues to plot attacks
against non-Muslims.
In addition, he pointed out the revelation of a letter sent by an
anonymous writer to the National Intelligence Organization (MIT)
claiming that the Tactical Mobilization Group (STK) of the General
Staff was behind a number of assassinations, including an armed attack
on the Council of State in 2006, the murder of Dink and the Malatya
killings.
"The letter also claimed that the STK has three main branches: one in
the northern province of Trabzon, one in southern Hatay and the other
in the eastern province of Malatya," he added.
Journalist Ismail Saymaz, writer of the book, "Nefret/Malatya: Bir
Milli Mutabakat Cinayeti" (Hate/Malatya: A Murder of National
Consensus), said at the same panel that people should not blame the
"deep state" behind every act because the ruling Justice and
Development party (AK Party), which does not show enough political
will behind those serious murder investigations and even promotes
major suspects who hold official positions, is also a responsible
party in the big picture. He also said that anybody that is not a
male, Sunni Turk in Turkey does not feel as if they have full
citizenship rights.
From: A. Papazian