Hrant Dink was an Armenian-Turkish journalist who was assassinated by a fifteen year-old teenager on January 19, 2007. The assassin, Ogun Samast, was captured in a very short time by the military. The very next day, around 20,000 people protested the incident on the streets of Istanbul. Furthermore, the trial had started shortly after capturing two other suspects who seemed to be instigators of the assassination. The trial has only now concluded after almost five years, on January 17, 2012. The verdict was very controversial since the court had ruled that there was no criminal organization involved in Dink’s assassination. People flooded the streets of Istanbul in response, but this time they were 50,000 and much angrier than last time.The essence of the controversy of Hrant Dink’s case is coming from the fact that he was warned many times to be more careful about his speeches, or he could get into trouble. In the end, he did get into trouble, was fatally shot in the head by Samast, who was declared a “hero” by nationalists and by army police personnel who captured him in the first place.

They did not hesitate to have a picture with him, as they hung the Turkish flag in the background. The majority of the Turkish nationalists saw the killer as their new hero as some composed songs that were dedicated to him, whereas the rest were sunk into a silence of ignorance. It is obvious that many people who held important seats in the governmental offices were involved in his killing, and ironically they were the ones who were supposed to solve the case and capture the real killers of Hrant Dink. For many years, the Turkish public witnessed these kinds of assassinations and most of them concluded by convicting the ones who pulled the trigger, but not the ones who were the masterminds. People with enough consciousness are not really satisfied by the conviction of these thugs who do not have enough capacity to plan anything in their miserable life. However, Dink’s case had changed something in the air, and the first protest was a warning. People carried banners in their hands saying: “We are all Armenian.” It was not about them coming from an Armenian background, but it was simply saying that it could be anyone who carries the Turkish passport, on the other side of the barrel. A lot of people from both media and the government made clear that they were not Armenian, without even thinking that Hrant Dink could say that he was not Turkish although he had the passport. However, the machine had expanded every potential threat against their agenda, and Dink was not the first one, nor will he be the last.

This January brought a new kind of consciousness that allowed protesting, not only on Facebook pages but also on the streets of Istanbul. For the first time in history, people did not only react against the assassination itself but also against the reaction of the rest who remained silent, or justified Dink’s assassination by a racist base. They took responsibility and followed up with the process. The conclusion was very effective. The prosecutor appealed the verdict and the case was reopened with a speed that has never been seen in the Turkish justice history. Also, the most meaningful detail was the comment from the judge: “It was an organizational crime by the deep state, but I was not able to rule that way.” However, the public was and they already did their part, the rest is really unknown.

Sources:

http://www.radikal.com.tr/Radikal.aspx?aType=RadikalDetayV3&ArticleID=1077790&CategoryID=77&Rdkref=6

http://www.candundar.com.tr/_v3/#!/...