Petition to name one of Yerevan streets after Hrant Dink (video)
Armenian-Turkish relations must be taken out from 1915 meters deep well. It was the dream of Hrant Dink, which didn’t come true. Hrant Dink was killed on January 19, 2007, in Istanbul near the office of “Agos”. He used to repeat that he was Armenian, but was born in Turkey; he considered himself to be a part of the Turkish society and didn’t want to run away from it. In spite of constant threats, he always raised the issue of the Armenian Genocide in the only Armenian Turkish-language newspaper in Istanbul. Dink changed Turkey especially with his death. The next day after his murder thousands of people took to the streets with the photos of Dink, flowers, candles by holding posters reading, “We are all Armenians, we are all Dink”. Every year on January 19 silent commemoration ceremonies are held in Yerevan, Istanbul and other cities of the world. Today people gathered outside Yerevan Municipality also organized petition by demanding to name one of Yerevan streets after Hrant Dink. The petition was handed over to the Municipality. Commemorating the ninth anniversary of the assassination of the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović reiterated her call for a swift and transparent judicial procedure to identify the masterminds behind the murder. To remind, in 2011, the perpetrator Ogün Samast was sentenced to 22 years and ten months in prison for the murder. His accomplice, Yasin Hayal, is serving a life sentence for supplying Samast with a weapon and money. Though, the family and advocates of Dink are sure until today that the court did everything in order to conceal the masterminds behind journalist Hrant Dink’s murder.
