Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Woland]

Another NYTimes article, suggesting that the death has become an opportunity for reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia, with Armenia accepting an invitation to send an official delegation to the funeral, and the Turkish government agreeing to a much larger and more public funeral than might have been anticipated. I wouldn't get my hopes up for big changes in a short time, but it seems like some potential is there.

The story also reports that the Turkish Parliament is willing to take up the matter of abolishing Article 301 in order end prosecutions like that of Hrant Dink. Again, I'll wait to see it happen, but the level of public outrage seems likely to support a push in that direction.

It would be a sad irony if the reconciliation and democratization that Hant Dink worked for so much of his adult life would take his death to come about. And a different kind of irony, if in shooting him, the nationalist movement shot itself in the foot.

Here's the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/world/europe/23turkey.html?hp&ex=1169614800&en=6a6f2d1563ce7599&ei=5094&partner=homepage

BTW, the article does mention the links to a suspected islamacist that BJWD mentioned earlier, but plays him up as a nationalist as well. It also continues to maintain that the main motivation here was nationalist.

Other news reports I've seen show that the killer was an umemployed high school drop out from a lower middle class family. He had been expelled from his amateur soccer club for disciplinary reasons. One club official described him as unable to stomach defeat, but open to manipulation. Not a good combination.

[Rteacher]

Even though I'm related to a famous Armenian guerilla fighter general who ended up decapitated by Turks (my grandmother had an oval framed portrait photo of him smoking a hookah...) I lost respect for the Armenian government and church when they hired thugs to beat up and desecrate a Krishna temple in Armenia. Although the Krishnas provided needed food and care at a center for blind orphans, the church evidently couldn't tolerate any spiritual competion, and the formerly communist government didn't want to extend religious freedom to a tradition originating in India. Ironically, during the Turkish massacre, India generously took in many Armenian refugees...

[Woland]

And the closing:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Turkey-Journalist-Killed.html?hp&ex=1169614800&en=c64f10a2edcc4953&ei=5094&partner=homepage

The picture is incredible - 10s of thousands of people lining Istiklal Caddesi to honor Dink as his cortege passed by, something unimaginable, really.

And some words about the importance of understanding from Dink's wife:

[mithridates]

[Big_Bird]

Well this article seems rather heartening in that it points out that the country seems to be dealing with the incident in a constructive way:

Turkey rises above its ultra-nationalists