In other news...
I don't know how much coverage US media has been giving to the Hrant Dink assassination in Turkey a few days ago. BBC World and Euronews give me the impression that in terms of global politics, this holds some high stakes and it doesn't just feel important to me as an Armenian.
In short, Hrant Dink was a prominent Turkish-Armenian writer and activist who was recently convicted of "insulting Turkishness", a controversial law that has for the most part been used against people that call the mass killings of Armenians by the Young Turks and the Ottoman Empire before them, genocide. There have been several ethnic Turkish authors/journalists/activists also who have been jailed, prosecuted, harassed and so forth for doing just that, Orhan Pamuk being one of them.
A 17-year old has been arrested and has confessed to shooting Dink. It is rumored that the youth was acting as a puppet of Turkish nationalists who oppose their country's EU accession talks and felt that such a murder would jeopardize the administration's efforts in this process.
Dink's funeral was today and in a twist that I personally did not expect (probably a biased non-expectation), tens of thousands of people with signs saying "We Are All Armenians" (metaphorically speaking, they weren't all actual Armenians) marched in solidarity. I hope that Armenians all over see this and realize that we have siblings within the Turkish people and start to question some of their own prejudices about Turks. I'm talking to you, you creepy Facebook groups with anti-Turkish comments and generalizations!
In short, Hrant Dink was a prominent Turkish-Armenian writer and activist who was recently convicted of "insulting Turkishness", a controversial law that has for the most part been used against people that call the mass killings of Armenians by the Young Turks and the Ottoman Empire before them, genocide. There have been several ethnic Turkish authors/journalists/activists also who have been jailed, prosecuted, harassed and so forth for doing just that, Orhan Pamuk being one of them.
A 17-year old has been arrested and has confessed to shooting Dink. It is rumored that the youth was acting as a puppet of Turkish nationalists who oppose their country's EU accession talks and felt that such a murder would jeopardize the administration's efforts in this process.
Dink's funeral was today and in a twist that I personally did not expect (probably a biased non-expectation), tens of thousands of people with signs saying "We Are All Armenians" (metaphorically speaking, they weren't all actual Armenians) marched in solidarity. I hope that Armenians all over see this and realize that we have siblings within the Turkish people and start to question some of their own prejudices about Turks. I'm talking to you, you creepy Facebook groups with anti-Turkish comments and generalizations!