ANC Australia Condemns Assassination of Turkish-Armenian Journalist
MEDIA RELEASE: For immediate release
20 January 2007
SYDNEY; The Armenian National Committee of Australia, Inc today joined the international community in mourning and condemning the cold-blooded and racially motivated murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Mr Hrant Dink, a leading Istanbul-based Armenian journalist gunned-down outside the offices of his Agos newspaper today amid a growing tide of official Turkish government prosecutions and nationalist pressure to silence his writings on the Armenian Genocide.
"Hrant Dink's murder is tragic proof that the Turkish government - through its shameful campaign of denial, threats and intimidation against the recognition of the Armenian Genocide - continues to fuel the same hatred and intolerance that initially led to this crime against humanity more than 90 years ago," said ANC Australia President Dr Tro Kortian.
The Turkish Government has created the very atmosphere in Turkey were such a vile and racially motivated assassination was sadly to be expected. “The continued denial by the Turkish State of the mass murder of 1.5 million Armenian men, women an children during World War I, and the criminalisation of open discussion of this taboo topic in Turkey, has given a green light to this murder of a Turkish-Armenian citizen who dared to print the truth” Dr Kortian continued.
"This deliberate act aims at maintaining the Armenian community in Turkey and other Turkish citizens in support of freedom of expression in a climate of terror in order to show them that freedom of expression can have no place in Turkey, especially concerning the Armenian genocide, and that the community should not overstep its limits", Dr Kortian stated.
“We call upon the Australian Government unequivocally to condemn this racially motivated assassination and all attempts to silence the crime of the Armenian Genocide” Dr Kortian concluded.
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