Journalists Targeted for Anti-Militarist Articles

The “Halka ve OlaylaraTercüman” (“Interpreter of the People and Events”) newspaper was one of the newspapers which did not cover the anniversary of Hrant Dink’s murder on their front page at the weekend.

The messages of Hrant Dink’s articles in the Agos newspaper were often deliberately misread, which led to him becoming a public target, as well as being tried and sentenced for “insulting Turkishness” under Article 301. On 19 January 2007, he was murdered by a nationalist young man.

New targets for nationalists 

One year later, on 19 January 2008, the Tercüman newspaper made targets out of journalists Perihan Magden and Ece Temelkuran.

The relevant article is related to a Turkish flag which high school students made from their own blood and sent to the General Staff. Chief of General Staff Büyükanit had shown the flag to journalists a week ago, expressing his pride in the children. The Tercüman newspaper had even distributed promotional copies of this “flag” to its readers.

Reaction to "flag of blood"

Both Magden and Temelkuran had reacted to the flag in their columns. On 15 January, Magden had written an article entitled “Flag of Blood”, in which she condemned the militarist, war-mongering and violent atmosphere which had inspired the children to such an act. She also condemned Büyükanit’s reaction. Her article ended: “No one should die on this soil anymore. There should be no more odes to being killed and killing in this country. Let there be no applause and tears for such pathological expressions on this soil. Let there be no more discourse of “martyrs.”

Temelkuran had written an article entitled “Bloodflag, Flagblood” on 18 January, in which she had said: “If only this noise, which makes flags out of children and dead children out of flags, would end.”

Tercüman's reaction 

In an article entitled “These women have lost their way”, which included their photographs, the Tercüman newspaper said:

“While reactions against the flag-enemy Magden are continuing, another ugly (person) has emerged. Ece Temelkuran has also had the cheek to insult the Turkish flag and has committed a crime (…). Reactions continue to flood in against Radikal newspaper journalist Perihan Magden, whose name has been associated with polemics recently, and her ugly words, which are remote from a Turkish identity.”

A week before his murder, Hrant Dink had written about why he had been made a public target.

He argued that it had started with an article published in the Agos newspaper, in which he had written that Sabiha Gökcen, Turkey’s first female pilot and a protégé of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, was Armenian. When the Hürriyet newspaper cited this article, the mainstream media caught on. Then the General Staff of the Turkish Army made a statement warning that “such a [national] symbol should not become a topic of debate under any circumstance.” Not much time passed until Dink became the first writer to be sentenced for “insulting Turkishness” under Article 301, for a newspaper article which had had the opposite intentions.

If you now change the names, subjects and dates, it becomes obvious that we are standing at the same spot as when Dink wrote his article. The Tercüman newspaper accuses two writers of committing crimes for saying that “nobody should die” and reacting against those praising death. We were reminded of where such accusations can lead to on the anniversary of Hrant Dink’s death- it is time to react before it is too late. (EÜ/TK/AG)