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Today's Zaman, Turkey
Jan 20 2015
Assassinated Turkish-Armenian journalist commemorated in Yerevan
Hrant Dink, the editor-in-chief of the Ä°stanbul-based Agos newspaper
who was assassinated outside of his office on Jan. 19, 2007, was
commemorated at the Tsitsernakaberd memorial complex in Yerevan on the
eighth anniversary of his murder.
Approximately 25 participants met at the Tsitsernakaberd, dedicated to
the memory of Anatolian Armenians killed during World War I, just a
little outside of central Yerevan at 5 p.m. on Monday. The group was
mostly made up of activists, artists, scholars and writers from all
over Armenia, as well as diaspora Armenians from France, Lebanon and
the US. After gathering at the complex, they walked in a silent march
toward the opera house in the heart of Yerevan.
While Dink was commemorated in Yerevan before, in 2011 and 2013, those
events were performance-based, in places such as the Yerevan Chamber
Music Hall. This year's commemoration event was unique in that it
included a march and a moment of silence in memory of Dink.
Speaking with Today's Zaman, one of the event's organizers, Suzan
Meryem Rosita Aljadeeah, said: `Hrant Dink has inspired a breaking of
silence and I think he is a symbol of peace. Today, this walk is a
very peaceful walk. I am not walking to make a political statement but
walking in memory of him and in prayer.'
A genocide scholar with German and Turkish origins, Aljadeeah is a
historian and an artist currently based at Gallery 25-Modern Art
Gallery in Gyumri, Armenia. She is also taking part in the Hrant Dink
Foundation's Turkey-Armenia Fellowship Scheme that promotes
cross-border affiliations and the cooperation of professionals from
Armenia and Turkey.
Aljadeeah noted that she had an opportunity to meet Dink in person in
2004 when she was an undergraduate student of history at BoÄ?aziçi
University in Ä°stanbul. At the beginning of a presentation on what she
called the Armenian genocide, she was silenced by her professors and
classmates. Through political activist groups that she was part of,
Aljadeeah met Dink at his office. `I was moved by his resilience and
his calm character. It didn't surprise him at all that I was
silenced,' Aljadeeah told Today's Zaman. That day, Aljadeeah learned
from Dink that strength did not come from being aggressive but from
being strong within and continuing to make progress in a resilient
way.
Dink was best known for his willingness to critically debate the
issues of Armenian identity and the official versions of history in
Turkey related to the massacres of Armenians in 1915. He was
prosecuted for expressing his opinions and later shot and killed by an
ultra-nationalist teenager, hit man Ogün Samast. In September 2010,
the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled against Turkey for
not preventing the murder of the journalist and not carrying out an
effective investigation afterwards. A renewed court process started in
September of last year, but many remain critical of efforts to bring
to account high-level public officials who were involved in Dink's
assassination.
http://www.todayszaman.com/national_assassinated-turkish-armenian-journalist-commemorated-in-yerevan_370301.html
Jan 20 2015
Assassinated Turkish-Armenian journalist commemorated in Yerevan
Hrant Dink, the editor-in-chief of the Ä°stanbul-based Agos newspaper
who was assassinated outside of his office on Jan. 19, 2007, was
commemorated at the Tsitsernakaberd memorial complex in Yerevan on the
eighth anniversary of his murder.
Approximately 25 participants met at the Tsitsernakaberd, dedicated to
the memory of Anatolian Armenians killed during World War I, just a
little outside of central Yerevan at 5 p.m. on Monday. The group was
mostly made up of activists, artists, scholars and writers from all
over Armenia, as well as diaspora Armenians from France, Lebanon and
the US. After gathering at the complex, they walked in a silent march
toward the opera house in the heart of Yerevan.
While Dink was commemorated in Yerevan before, in 2011 and 2013, those
events were performance-based, in places such as the Yerevan Chamber
Music Hall. This year's commemoration event was unique in that it
included a march and a moment of silence in memory of Dink.
Speaking with Today's Zaman, one of the event's organizers, Suzan
Meryem Rosita Aljadeeah, said: `Hrant Dink has inspired a breaking of
silence and I think he is a symbol of peace. Today, this walk is a
very peaceful walk. I am not walking to make a political statement but
walking in memory of him and in prayer.'
A genocide scholar with German and Turkish origins, Aljadeeah is a
historian and an artist currently based at Gallery 25-Modern Art
Gallery in Gyumri, Armenia. She is also taking part in the Hrant Dink
Foundation's Turkey-Armenia Fellowship Scheme that promotes
cross-border affiliations and the cooperation of professionals from
Armenia and Turkey.
Aljadeeah noted that she had an opportunity to meet Dink in person in
2004 when she was an undergraduate student of history at BoÄ?aziçi
University in Ä°stanbul. At the beginning of a presentation on what she
called the Armenian genocide, she was silenced by her professors and
classmates. Through political activist groups that she was part of,
Aljadeeah met Dink at his office. `I was moved by his resilience and
his calm character. It didn't surprise him at all that I was
silenced,' Aljadeeah told Today's Zaman. That day, Aljadeeah learned
from Dink that strength did not come from being aggressive but from
being strong within and continuing to make progress in a resilient
way.
Dink was best known for his willingness to critically debate the
issues of Armenian identity and the official versions of history in
Turkey related to the massacres of Armenians in 1915. He was
prosecuted for expressing his opinions and later shot and killed by an
ultra-nationalist teenager, hit man Ogün Samast. In September 2010,
the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled against Turkey for
not preventing the murder of the journalist and not carrying out an
effective investigation afterwards. A renewed court process started in
September of last year, but many remain critical of efforts to bring
to account high-level public officials who were involved in Dink's
assassination.
http://www.todayszaman.com/national_assassinated-turkish-armenian-journalist-commemorated-in-yerevan_370301.html