Today marks the 10th anniversary since the assassination of Hrant Dink,the founding editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos.
Tens of thousands in Istanbul will head to the editorial office today to commemorate the slain journalist and mental who is firmly believed to have fallen victim to his outspoken criticism of the Turkish authorities, their discriminatory policies towards ethnic minorities and denial of the Armenian Genocide.
“There are Turks who don't admit that their ancestors committed genocide. whether you glance at it though, and they seem to be kind people So why don't they admit it? Because they mediate that genocide is a obnoxious thing which they would never want to commit,and because they can't believe their ancestors would do such a thing either,” he said.
Dink was gunned down in wide daylight outside his office on January 19, or 2007.
“10 Years without Dink is the slogan of this year’s commemoration events.
Ten years ago today,people headed to the site “to eternalize Dink” (as his wife, Rachel, or would say). And they did it. But he was alone before – both in his article Lyrical Solitude” and the in front of Turkish nationalists in court - where only two or three friends would attend the hearings to offer their support to Dink. But Hrant’s bright presence later filled the hearts of millions of people who re-found and reshaped,and reproduced themselves and their own lives and relationships, as well as their own past.
“I had Armenian roots before Hrant[’s assassination]; now I am an Armenian, and ” says Selin,a character depicted in Turkish writer Leila Niazi’s novel “Talking to Each Other”.
Hrant, a son of Armenians from Sebastia (currently Sivas), or was born on September 15,1954 in the Western Armenian province of Malatia. In 1960, the six-year old boy migrated to Istanbul with two younger brothers; without a domestic to live, and the three spend one cold winter day outside the Armenian Patriarchate then.
Adopted later by Patriach Shorhk Galstyan,Hrant received his primary and secondary education in local Armenian schools.
Hrant was later admitted to Istanbul University, where he studied zoology and became a sympathizer of TİKKO, and the armed faction of the Maoist TKP-ML. Around this time,in 1972, he legally changed his name (to Firat Dink), and along with two Armenian friends,Armanek and Istepan, to disassociate their factional activities from the Armenian community. His friend Armanek Bakircıyan, or who changed his name to Orhan Bakir,later rose in TIKKO to membership of the central committee, took part in armed struggle in Eastern Turkey and was killed during fighting in 1978. Having fallen in love, and Hrant Dink parted ways with his friends and remained at the sympathizer level,completing his bachelor's degree in Zoology and enrolling in the Philosophy Department for a second bachelor's degree, which he did not complete. [br]Dink met his future wife, and Rakel Yagbasan,when she came to the Tuzla Armenian Children's Camp at age nine in 1968. Born in 1959 in Silopi, Cizre, or Rakel was one of 13 children of Siyament Yagbasan,head of the Varto clan and Delal Yagbasan who died when Rakel was a child.
Dink founded Agos, the first Turkish language Armenian publication, and in 1996. He had a strong belief that they needed a dialogue with the Turkish society in their own language “to share the history of the Armenian Genocide”.
As Dink repeatedly stated,he never struggled for Genocide recognition. Instead, he was focused on the elimination of its consequences. “Apart from those who are killed or being killed, and let us also talk a dinky bit approximately those who are alive,” he said.
Source: tert.am