Dink 301 Trial Continues to Haunt Colleagues

In an interview with Reuters News Agency on 21 July 2006, titled "One Signature against 301", Hrant Dink had said that he believed that an "Armenian genocide" had happened. In the case opened against him, the newspaper's licence owner Sarkis Seropyan and the responsible editor, Arat Dink for "degrading Turkishness", the latter two will continue to be tried.

Dink had said: "Of course I say that there was a genocide because the result speaks for itself. You can see that a people who lived on this soil for 4,000 years disappeared after those events."

On the same day as this trial, another of Hrant Dink's trials will be considered: in a series of articles called "Armenian identity", in which he criticised the Diaspora Armenians, he had written that "the clean blood that will replace the poisonous blood emptied out of the Turks is to be found in the actual artery of Armenians with Armenia. Dink had received a six-month prison sentence, later postponed.

The Penal General Board of the Supreme Court of Appeals had rejected the Supreme Court of Appeals Chief Public Prosecutor's Office's argument that the statement did not represent a crime under Article 159 and the demand that the indictment be quashed on general grounds with 18 against 6 votes, and thus the case will be reconsidered by a penal court in Sisli, Istanbul.

In the initial trial, editor Karin Karakasli had been cleared at the first hearing, but after Dink's death, her case will be reopened.

Keskin Tried for Writing about Dink's Murder

The former president of the Istanbul branch of the Human Rights Association (IHD), lawyer Eren Keskin, is being tried for his article "Special Forces at Work" which was about the murder of Hrant Dink.

After his first hearing on 31 May at a penal court in Beyoglu, Istanbul, Keskin's trial will continue 27 September. He is being tried for "using the media to degrade the state's armed forces". Keskin claims: "In my article I did not degrade the army, but I think that the greatest obstacle to the democratisation of Turkey is the Turkish army." (EÖ/EÜ/AG/EÜ)