Agos, 12 January 2007

A foreword before I begin: I have been sentenced to six months imprisonment for “insulting Turkishness,” a crime I have never committed. As a last resort, I am now applying to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). My lawyers will submit the petition by 17 January, and they wanted me to write an account of how things developed to where we stand today. I decided to share this article, which will be included in the case file, with the public. I do this because the decision the people of Turkey will reach in their conscience is as important to me as the decision of the ECtHR, if not more so. I probably would have preferred to keep some of the information disclosed in this article, as well as my state of mind, to myself. But since things have come to this point, I suppose that sharing everything will be for the best.

It is not just me, nor just the Armenian community, but an entire public that wants to know the answer to this question: “For almost everyone ever investigated or prosecuted for insulting Turkishness, a technical or juridical solution was somehow found, and their cases were dismissed at the first hearing without a conviction. Why, then, was Hrant Dink convicted and sentenced to six months?”

Getting away with it

This is neither an incorrect assessment nor an unnecessary question.

If you recall, they worked hard to find a way to dismiss Orhan Pamuk’s case before hearings began.

Some said that the Ministry of Justice had to give permission for the trial and had to be asked first. So that’s what happened.

Realising that the ball was now in his court, the Minister of Justice, feeling cornered, railed at Orhan Pamuk on the one hand, and on the other called upon him to deny he had ever said what he was being accused of saying.

Eventually the first hearing of the Pamuk Case was held. The violent attacks staged during this first hearing disgraced Turkey in the eyes of the world so badly that the case was dismissed before a second hearing was held. Pamuk’s Article 301 adventure ended with a technical solution.

Although there was a lot of noise before the case started, it was dismissed at the first hearing, without Elif Şafak even having to come to court. Everybody was quite happy with these technical solutions. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan himself called Şafak to convey his good wishes regarding the dismissal of her case.
Similarly, the writers and academics who faced prosecution for the crime of “insulting Turkishness” for what they had written subsequent to the Armenian Conference also “got away with it,” receiving only similar slaps on the wrist.

Unanswered questions

Don’t think that I am jealous that these cases were resolved so easily. On the contrary, the mere fact that these trials or investigations took place is a very heavy price to pay for the people involved. I am among those who understand best and share what these friends of mine have been through.

My point is to try to find some answers to the question of why similar concern and haste was not displayed in the Hrant Dink case.

We saw that these mere slaps on the wrist gave the government an opportunity to point to them as examples of Turkish good faith in the eyes of the European Union, which is pressing for the repeal of Article 301. But the conviction of Hrant Dink was the only case in which the government had no answers for the EU.
There was total silence when this issue was raised.

Truly, “Why is it that for almost everyone who was investigated or prosecuted on charges of insulting Turkishness, a legal or technical solution was found so that the cases were closed without any convictions, but not for Hrant Dink, who was sentenced to six months for writing an article in which no crime was committed?”

The significance of being Armenian

Yes, we all need an answer to this question! Especially me.

At the end of the day, I am a citizen of this country and I insist on being treated equally to everyone else.
I have, of course, faced a lot of negative discrimination for being an Armenian.

For instance, when I was doing my short-term military service (eight months) in the Denizli 12th Infantry Regiment, following the enlistment ceremony, all of the other guys in my cohort were given the rank of corporal — I alone was kept to one side, and remained a private.

I was a grown man with two children; perhaps I shouldn’t really have cared. What’s more, I was going to be more comfortable than the others, as I would not be assigned guard duties or worse.

But the truth of the matter is that I was deeply affected by this discrimination. I will never, ever forget how, after the enlistment ceremony, I hid behind a tin hut and cried for two hours, alone, while everyone else shared their joy with their families.

It remains a deep wound in my memory how the field officer called me to his office and tried to comfort me by saying, “Don’t worry, if you happen to have any problems, come to me.”

Obviously being prosecuted, acquitted or sentenced under Article 301 is not the same as being awarded a military rank.

Hence, I am not, of course, saying anything like, “If they were not convicted, I shouldn’t have been either,” and certainly not, “If I am convicted, then they should have been too.”

But I have to admit that, as someone who has had to deal with no small amount of discrimination in his life, I can’t stop asking this question:
“Has the fact that I am an Armenian played a role in this outcome?”

What I know and what I sense

Of course, when I put what I know and what I sense together, I do have an answer to this question.

Here is the summary: Certain people reached a decision and said, “This Hrant Dink has gone too far... He needs to be shown his place,” and they took action.
I know this is a claim which puts me and my Armenian identity at centre stage. You may argue that I am exaggerating.

But nevertheless, this remains my instinctive perception of it... The facts I have and my life experiences leave me with no other explanation.

Probably the best thing for me to do now is to tell you everything I have lived through and all I have sensed. Then you can decide for yourself.

Showing me my place

First, let me clarify what “Hrant Dink has gone too far” means.

Dink was a thorn in their side and had already been on their radar for quite some time.

He had been occasionally overstepping the line since 1996, the year he started publishing Agos, by voicing the problems of, and demanding rights for, the Armenian community, and expressing his own views about history, which ran counter to the official Turkish state doctrine. But the last straw was the article about Sabiha Gökçen that Agos published on 6 February 2004.

In the article, titled “The Secret of Sabiha Hatun” and written by Hrant Dink, the Armenian relatives of Sabiha Gökçen, Atatürk’s adopted daughter, claimed that she was in fact an orphan taken from an Armenian orphanage.

Turkey was shaken when Hürriyet, the country’s best-selling newspaper, quoted the article in a headline in its 21 February 2004 issue.

For more than 15 days, columnists wrote both negative and positive comments about it, and various public groups issued a variety of statements on the matter.
The most important of these was the written statement issued by the General Staff.

The General Staff reacted to this news by saying, “Regardless of its aim, opening a national symbol like this to debate is an offence against national integrity and social harmony.”

They believed that those involved in the publication of this article were evil-minded people intent on carrying out a devastating assault on Turkish identity by attacking one of its key figures — a person who had been transformed into the mythical symbol of the Turkish woman — by stripping her of her Turkish identity.

Who were these unscrupulous people? Who was this Hrant Dink?

Someone needed to put him in his place!

Invitation to an official chat

The declaration of the General Staff was published on 22 February.

I listened to this long declaration on TV at home.

That night, I felt uneasy. I felt certain that something would happen the next day. As it turned out, my intuition was right.

My phone rang early the next morning.

It was one of the Deputy Governors of Istanbul. He said, in a cold voice, that he was waiting to see me in his office, and that I should bring with me all the documents I had related to the news story.

When I asked the purpose of this invitation, he answered that he wanted to have a chat and to see the documents I had.

I called my experienced journalist friends and asked them how I should interpret this invitation.

They said that it was unusual, but not a legal procedure, and advised me to go and to take the documents.

I had to be careful

I took my friends’ advice and went to the Deputy Governor with the documents I had.

He was very polite. When he invited me in, I noticed that two other people, a man and a woman, were in the room as well. He told me that they were his close acquaintances and asked if it would be okay with me if they stayed during our meeting.

Having already realized how delicate the situation was, I replied that I had no objection and took a seat.

The Deputy Governor came straight to the point. “Mr. Dink,” he said, “you are a highly experienced journalist. Wouldn’t it be better if you wrote your stories more carefully? And besides, what use are these kinds of stories anyway? You see what a commotion yours has caused. Don’t get me wrong, we wouldn’t misjudge you, but the ordinary people on the street might. They may think that you have other intentions in writing this kind of news. You see this document? The Armenian Patriarch filed a petition complaining about some Internet sites. There were some unscrupulous people trying to initiate what could be called terrorist acts against some institutions of the Armenian community. We searched for these people, found them in Bursa, and handed them over to the authorities. But the streets are full of people like these. Shouldn’t we be more careful about writing this kind of news story?”

The male guest then completely took over the discussion; no one else could get a word in edgewise.

He reiterated the things that the Deputy Governor had said, but in clearer terms.

He said that I had to be careful, that I should avoid doing anything that would create tension among people in the country.

He warned me repeatedly:

“Even though we do not agree with your style, it is clear to us from certain other things you have written that you do not have bad intentions. However, not everyone will see things that way, and you may draw reactions from the public.”

For my part, I simply told them why I wrote that story.

First of all, I was a journalist and it was a story that would excite any journalist.

Second, for once I had wanted to try to talk a little about the Armenian question in the context of the survivors instead of the dead.

But they made me understand that it was even harder to talk about the survivors!

As I was about to leave, I realized that they hadn’t even asked to see the documents I had brought with me. It was I who reminded them that they had asked for the documents, and I handed them over.

The reason for the invitation was clear from what they had said.

I had to know my place... I had to be careful or else it could turn out badly for me!

Now I was a target

Indeed, what followed was not good.

The day after I was summoned to the governor’s office, many columnists from various newspapers cherrypicked a line from my series of essays on Armenian identity which read, “The new blood that will replace the poisoned blood that is shed after being liberated from ‘the Turk’ can be found in the noble veins that Armenians will develop in connecting with Armenia.” Twisting my original meaning, they started to publish articles suggesting that I was running an anti-Turkish campaign. Following these articles, on 26 February, a group of ultra-nationalists led by Levent Temiz, head of the Ülkü Ocakları, an ultra-nationalist youth group, gathered in front of the Agos building and chanted slogans and threats against me.

The police had already been informed that this demonstration was going to happen. The necessary measures to ensure our safety were taken, both inside Agos and at the entrance of the building.

All of the TV channels and journalists had been informed beforehand, and they were also all present in front of Agos. The slogans of the group were very clear: “Love the country or leave it,” “To hell with ASALA [1]” “We’ll come for you in the dead of night.”

Levent Temiz made a speech in which his target was also very clear: “Hrant Dink is the target; he is the target of all our fury and hatred.”

After the demonstration, the group dispersed. However, for some reason, none of the TV channels (except Kanal 7[2]) or newspapers (except Özgür Gündem[3]) covered what had happened.

It was clear that the powers that had led the ultra-nationalists to Agos had also succeeded in keeping the media from broadcasting those negative images and slogans, with the exception of the few that had slipped through.

On the edge of danger

A couple of days later a similar demonstration was held in front of Agos by a group of people who called themselves the “Federation to Fight against Baseless Armenian Claims”.

Then suddenly a group called the “Great Union of Jurists” headed by lawyer Kemal Kerinçsiz, a relatively insignificant name until then, became a party to this process. Kerinçsiz and his friends filed a complaint against me with the Şişli Prosecutor’s Office. This complaint effectively sped up the cases initiated under the infamous Article 301 that has ruined Turkey’s reputation. As for me, this marked the beginning of a new and dangerous phase.

But then I have walked on the edge of danger throughout my life.

Either danger loved me or I loved it...

And here I was, on the edge of the same cliff once again. There were people after me once again.

I could sense them.

And I knew very well that they were not limited to Kerinçsiz’s group, that they were not that visible, not that ordinary.

[1] Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia

[2] A national TV channel with religious affiliations.

[3] A Turkish-language newspaper focusing mostly on the Kurdish Issue.