Hrant Dink - Prosecution For Denigrating Turkishness

Prosecution For Denigrating Turkishness

Dink was prosecuted three times for denigrating Turkishness under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code. He was acquitted the first time, convicted and received a suspended 6-month jail sentence the second time, which he had appealed at the European Court of Human Rights. At the time of his death, the prosecutor's office was preparing to press charges in a third case.

The first charge under the previous version of Article 301, then called Article 159, stemmed from a speech he delivered at a panel hosted by human rights NGO Mazlum-Der in Şanlıurfa on 14 February 2002. Speaking at the "Global Security, Terror and Human Rights, Multiculturalism, Minorities and Human Rights" panel, Dink and another speaker, lawyer Şehmus Ülek, faced charges for denigrating Turkishness and the Republic. In the speech, Dink had stated:

"Since my childhood, I have been singing the national anthem along with you. Recently, there is a section where I cannot sing any longer and remain silent. You sing it, I join you later. It is: Smile at my heroic race... Where is the heroism of this race? We are trying to form the concept of citizenship on national unity and a heroic race. For example, if it were Smile at my hard-working people..., I would sing it louder than all of you, but it is not. Of the oath I am Turkish, honest and hard-working, I like the 'honest and hard-working' part and I shout it loudly. The I am Turkish part, I try to understand as I am from Turkey."

On February 9, 2006, Hrant Dink, and Şehmus Ülek, who stood trial for another speech at the same panel, were acquitted of all charges.

The second charge under 301 was pressed for Dink's article called "Getting to know Armenia" (February 13, 2004), in which he suggested to diaspora Armenians that it was time to rid themselves of their enmity against Turks, a condition he considered himself free of, keeping himself emotionally healthy while at the same time knowing something of discrimination. His statement, "replace the poisoned blood associated with the Turk, with fresh blood associated with Armenia" resulted in a six-month suspended sentence.

Dink defended himself vigorously against the charges:

"This trial is based on a total misunderstanding," Dink told Reporters Without Borders. "I never meant to insult Turkish citizens. The term in question was taken out of context and is only symbolic. The real subject of the article is the Armenian diaspora who, once they have come to terms with the Turkish part of their identity, can seek new answers to their questions from independent Armenia.

In a February 2006 interview with the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Dink spoke about his 2005 conviction for denigrating Turkishness in a criminal court:

"This is a political decision because I wrote about the Armenian Genocide and they detest that, so they found a way to accuse me of insulting Turks."

In the same CPJ interview, he explained that while he had always been a target of Turkish nationalists, the past year had seen an increase in their efforts:

"The prosecutions are not a surprise for me. They want to teach me a lesson because I am Armenian. They try to keep me quiet."

His appeal of the ruling that found him guilty was rejected by a Turkish court in May 2006. Having exhausted internal appeal mechanisms, Dink appealed to the European Court of Human Rights for an overturn of the ruling on January 15. The appeal suggests that Article 301 compromises freedom of expression and that Dink has been discriminated against because of his Armenian ethnicity. Dink's family has the right to decide whether or not to proceed with the appeal after his death.

In September 2006, another case was opened against Dink on charges of 'denigrating Turkishness' under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, which Amnesty International considered to be "part of an emerging pattern of harassment against the journalist exercising his right to freedom of expression." The charge was brought against him by the Istanbul Prosecutor's Office after he referred to the 1915 massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide during a July 14, 2006 interview with Reuters:

"Of course I'm saying it's a genocide, because its consequences show it to be true and label it so. We see that people who had lived on this soil for 4,000 years were exterminated by these events."

The charges were also leveled at Serkis Seropyan and Dink's son Arat Dink, as the holder of Agos's publishing license and executive editor, respectively. On June 14, 2007, the case against Hrant Dink was dropped due to his death, though proceedings for Serkis Seropyan and Arat Dink were scheduled for July 18, 2007.

In September, 2010, the European Court of Human Rights found that Turkish authorities have violated Dink's freedom of speech (Article 10 ECHR) by criminal proceedings against him for alleged denigration of Turkish identity and in reality, for criticizing the state institutions' denial of the view that the events of 1915 amounted to genocide.