Friday, January 19, 2007

The Death of Hrant Dink and the Armenian genocide

News comes today of the death of Hrant Dink, a Turkish citizen of Armenian background who was gunned down outside the newspaper he edited in Istanbul. The motive for this murder was probably his public support for acknowledgment of the killing of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 as a genocide, as a step toward the reconciliation of Turks and Armenians, and the Republics of Turkey and Armenia. This is a very touchy subject in Turkey, where nationalistic feeling has made it illegal to criticize "Turkishness". This attitude has proved a barrier to Turkey's admission to the E.U., because it has led to a number of prosecutions of people writing about this and other unwelcome events.

For a Turkish comment on the murder, see this.

The picture comes from the Telegraph (UK)., which has more coverage of the incident.

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