Hrant Dink (1954-1915)

By Khatchig Mouradian

The above date, 1915, is not a typographical mistake.

On Saturday, April 24, 1915, Ottoman-Turkish soldiers arrested about 200
Armenian intellectuals—writers, journalists and community leaders—in
Istanbul, exiling them to the interior of the Ottoman Empire where they
would be killed. The plan was to behead the Armenian community by
annihilating its leadership and then to cleanse the entire population. The
day of the arrests marks the beginning of the Armenian Genocide.

On Friday, Jan. 19, 2007, also in Istanbul, another prominent Armenian
intellectual, Hrant Dink, was assassinated in front of the editorial offices
of his Armenian weekly newspaper Agos.

Hrant Dink is a victim of the Armenian Genocide.

And the Armenian Genocide continues.

Not only because denial is the last phase of Genocide.

But because the killing continues.

It was NOT an individual who killed Hrant Dink. So while Turkish authorities
are looking for a killer out loose in the streets, the real killer is the
Turkish state, which continues to foster a culture of violence,
assassinations, killings, oppression, and denial. The killer is the Turkish
state, which indoctrinates its citizens from an early age that the Armenian
Genocide is a myth, an agenda, pushed by the West to destroy Turkey.

"A bullet has been fired at democracy and freedom of expression," said
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Yes, the bullet was Article 301
of the Turkish Penal Code, under which Dink was prosecuted twice.

The person who pulled the trigger was executing the will of the Turkish
state. Like his Prime Minister, government, army and the so-called
“Deep-State,” he wanted to make the world believe that there was no Armenian
Genocide. Like Talaat Pasha, he believed that the Armenian question could be
solved by killing those who made demands.

We shall remember you, Hrant, together with Varoujan, Siamanto, Zohrab and
all the victims of the Armenian Genocide.