Thousands mourn murdered Armenian-Turkish journalist

Thousands gathered outside the bilingual Turkish and Armenian newspaper Agos early today to mourn its editor, murdered in an attack that has shocked Turkey.

His death has highlighted the precarious state of freedom of expression in Turkey and raised concerns of possible nationalist violence.

The crowds were to take part in the Istanbul funeral, marching in silence along a five-mile route from Agos – where ethnic Armenian Hrant Dink was gunned down on Friday – to an Armenian Orthodox church.

His family asked mourners not to chant slogans or to turn the funeral into a protest. Many carried up round placards reading “We are all Hrant Dinks” and “We are all Armenians” in Turkish and Armenian.

Police are questioning seven suspects, including a teenager, Ogun Samast, who has confessed to fatally shooting Dink, and Yasin Hayal, a nationalist militant convicted in a 2004 bomb attack at a McDonald’s restaurant.

Hayal has confessed to inciting the killing and to providing a gun and money to the teenager, police have said. The suspects also included a university student who allegedly “inspired” the attack, Hurriyet newspaper reported today. Police confirmed the report but gave no other details.

Prosecutors are investigating possible links to shadowy organisations that may have wanted Dink killed, although police have said there is indication that the suspects simply acted on nationalist sentiments.

Many here believe Dink was targeted because of his public statements on the mass killings of Armenians by Turks in the early 20th century, one of the nation’s most sensitive and divisive issues.

Dink, 52, had made public his view that the killings amounted to genocide. Nationalists consider such statements an insult to Turkey’s honour and a threat to its unity, and Dink had been showered with insults and death threats.

The journalist had been prosecuted of charges of insulting Turkishness under Turkey’s infamous article 301 and faced shouts of “traitor” from nationalists as he entered the courtroom. Dink insisted he wanted reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia.

“I had no intention of insulting Turkishness,” Dink had told The Associated Press in a telephone interview months before his death. “My only concern is to improve Armenian and Turkish relations.”

He seemed to have achieved that to a certain extent in his death: Turkey has no diplomatic ties with Armenia but still invited Armenian officials and religious leaders as well as moderate members of the diaspora to the funeral. Armenia sent Deputy Foreign Minister Arman Kirakosian. Hajak Barsamyan, head of the Armenian church in New York, was also to attend.

If the journalist was killed for his views, as many here believe, the killing would also highlight the continued threat from right-wing extremists seeking to punish those they deem to be traitors.

Hayal was convicted in the bombing of a McDonald’s restaurant in Trabzon in 2004 that injured six people. He was released after serving more than 10 months in prison for the attack, and the motives for the attack remain unclear.

At the time, police could not establish a link between Hayal and any underground groups. Hayal had said that he learned how to make bombs from Chechen militants in a camp in Azerbaijan and told police he attacked the restaurant “to punish the United States and its collaborators.”

Police captured Samast in the Black Sea city of Samsun late on Saturday after a tip from his father following the broadcast of pictures on Turkish television.

Turkey’s relationship with its Armenian minority has long been haunted by a bloody past. Much of its once-influential Armenian population was killed or driven out beginning around 1915 in what an increasing number of nations are calling the first genocide of the 20th century.

Turkey acknowledges that large numbers of Armenians died, but vehemently denies it was genocide, saying the overall figure had been inflated and the deaths occurred in the civil unrest during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.