Let’s not mince words. It was a teenager who pumped three bullets into Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, 53, at the entrance to the offices of Agos, the bilingual Armenian-Turkish weekly newspaper he founded in 1996. But Dink’s execution is a direct consequence of the policies of the Turkish government concerning the Armenian Genocide, and what Amnesty International terms "a pattern of judicial harassment against him for peacefully expressing his dissenting opinion."

For more than nine decades, successive Turkish governments have denied that Ottoman Turks carried out a systematic – nearly successful – genocidal plan to exterminate Armenians. The official Turkish position has been to characterize the "events of 1915" as resulting from disease, famine, privation and civil conflict as the Ottoman Empire collapsed in the World War I era. Or as an official government report by the Turkish Historical Society put it: "relocations" with "some untoward incidents."

This is a Big Lie.

Several smaller-scale pogroms against Armenians had been carried out by the Ottomans beginning in the mid-1800s. During each such episode of mass murder, roughly 150,000 to 250,000 Armenians were killed. The Armenian Massacre of 1915-1917 was the final paroxysm of racial and religious violence committed by Muslim Turks against Christian Armenians who had not been killed in previous ethnic cleansings.

Dink’s Life And Liberty Under Constant Threat

In June 2005, the current Islamic-leaning Justice and Development Party (AKP) government made it a crime to question the history books, to debate the Armenian Question and to insist that the 20^th Century’s first genocide be acknowledged. Under Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, those who claim that Ottoman Turks committed genocide are denigrating "Turkishness" and are subject to prosecution and imprisonment.

Dink (pronounced "deenk") was repeatedly prosecuted under Article 301. Once, because of an interview in which he described how he felt as a schoolboy reciting the Turkish oath: "I am Turkish, I am honest, I am hardworking … Happy is one who calls himself/herself a Turk." Dink said that although he was honest and hardworking, he was not a Turk, but an Armenian. He was acquitted in that case, but was convicted of an Article 301 offense in October 2005; his six-month prison term was suspended, provided he did not run afoul of the free-speech silencing law again. Last year, Turkey's top court upheld the six-month suspended jail sentence; several other cases were also pending against him.

In a Kafkaesque turn of events, Dink was sentenced to a six-month prison term in jail July 2006 for "attempting to influence the judiciary" after Agos ran editorials criticizing Article 301. It’s hard to imagine a community newspaper with a circulationof just 5,000 being that powerful, but the Turkish government clearly felt threatened by the truths published in its pages.

His guilt proven in the eyes of the law, nationalist sympathizers had the excuse they needed to silence Dink once and for all (video link). According to various news reports, eyewitnesses claim they heard Dink’s executioner shout, "I shot the Armenian" as he fled the scene. And when Ogun Samast, 17, was caught by police at a bus station, he reportedly confessed to the murder and explained, "I read on the Internet that he (Dink) said 'I am from Turkey but Turkish blood is dirty' and I decided to kill him ... I do not regret this." Ulutürk!

An Amnesty International press release blames "official attitudes in Turkey and laws suppressing freedom of speech" for inviting just the sort of violence that ended Dink’s life:

"In Turkey there are still a number of harsh laws which endorse the suppression of freedom of speech. These laws, coupled with the persisting official statements by senior government, state and military officials condemning critical debate and dissenting opinion, create an atmosphere in which violent attacks can take place," said Nicola Duckworth, Europe and Central Asia Programme Director at Amnesty International.

Dink often aroused the ire of Turkish nationalists over his defense of freedom of speech and his insistence that the Armenian Genocide not be swept under a Turkish rug, and in his final articles in Agos (scroll down towards the end for English language translations), he described the increasing number of death threats against him and his three children:

It is obvious that those wishing to alienate me and make me weak and defenceless [sic] reached their goal. Right now they have brought about a significant circle of people who are not low in number and who regard me as someone "insulting Turkish identity" due to the dirty and wrong information.

The diary and memory of my computer is full of messages from citizens of this circle full of rage and threats.

(Let me note that I regarded one among them posted from Bursa as a close threat and submitted it to Public Prosecutor’s office in Şişli but got no result.)

To what extent are these threats real and to what extent unreal? In fact it is impossible for me to know this. …

Like a dove I have my eyes everywhere, in front of me, at the back, on the left, on the right.

My head is as moving as the one of a dove... And fast enough to turn in an instance.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says Turkey is the eighth deadliest country in the world for journalists; 18 of them have been killed over the past 15 years.

In an especially hard-hitting commentary in the Atlantic Free Press, Jayne Lyn Stahl, a member of PEN USA, and PEN American Center in New York, takes Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to task for not doing more to protect Dink’s life – or clearing his reputation:

In a televised speech, Edrogan [sic] said that the attack came as a "shock," and that "the dark hands that killed him will be found and punished." (CNN) What he didn't say is that Dink had received a number of death threats in the past, and had asked for protection which he clearly never got. While the prime minister said Dink's murder was an "insult" to the Turkish nation, he didn't say that the charges against Dink of "insulting Turkishness" would be dropped, and that efforts will be made to preserve and protect a free press in that country.

Crocodile Tears

Turkish newspaper Hürriyet reports that on the evening of Dink’s execution, a crowd of 5,000 to 10,000 marched (video file) from Istanbul’s Taksim Square to the offices of Agos shouting such slogans as "We are all Hrant Dink. We are all Armenians."

Call The Stiletto a cynic, but she sees such demonstrations as nothing more than a photo-op intended for the BBC’s cameras beaming the pictures into the homes of European Union officials. A BBC report cites Armenian news agency Arminfo quoting the speaker of Armenia's parliament, Tigran Torosyan, as saying, "Following the murder, Turkey should not even dream about joining the European Union."

Erdogan and his people are crying crocodile tears over Dink’s death. The real tears are being shed over Turkey’s increasingly unlikely bid to join the EU (video link).Here, a round-up of comments from prominent Turks that reveal their true feelings (emphasis, The Stiletto’s):

† "This bullet was fired against Turkey ... an image has been created about Turkey that its Armenian citizens have no safety," said CNN Turk editor Taha Akyol.

† "If the trigger finger aimed at the air of stability and confidence in Turkey, it hit the bull’s eye," wrote Mehmet Barlas, a columnist for the center-right newspaper Sabah.

† "The image problem was already bad and this can only make it worse. Turkey will be seen as a country not only curtailing freedom of expression but the country that can also produce people who will assassinate writers and thinkers," said Suat Kiniklioglu, director of the German Marshall Fund's office in Turkey.

† "[T]he real murderer [sic] are the CIA and the Mossad … they use domestic tools for these crimes. Their main aim is to instablise [sic] Turkey," said Sevket Kazan, Deputy of the Turkish Saadet Party (SP) in a speech.

† "I am deeply sorry for the deceased and for my country. Turkey does not deserve this,” said Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu, Chairman of the Turkish Grand Unity Party.

When Doves Cry

In his last newspaper column on January 10, Dink wrote:

Probably the year 2007 will be a more difficult year for me.

Trials will continue, new cases will came [sic] up in court. Who knows which kind of injustice I will encounter.

But while this all will happen, I will regard the following fact as my guarantee.

Yes, I can feel myself as restless as a dove but I know that in this country people do not touch and disturb the doves.

Tragically, he was wrong. Turks kill doves, after all.

Editorial Note: Though he was not born in America, where freedom of expression and free press rights are Constitutional guarantees, Hrant Dink’s commitment to free speech was so absolute that even as he was being repeatedly prosecuted in Turkey for violating laws restricting speech and journalism, he opposed the French parliament's passing of a law banning denial of the Armenian genocide:

"I have been tried in Turkey for saying the Armenian genocide exists, and I have talked about how wrong this is. But if this bill becomes law, I will be one of the first to head to France and break the law. Then we can watch Turkey and the French government race to see which will throw me in jail first."

Journalists worldwide should be humbled by the courage he had of his convictions – and of the price he paid. Others – especially in this country - should be ashamed of their fickle defense of free speech.