February 12, 2007

San Francisco Elected Officials, Human Rights Community Condemn Dink Assassination

SAN FRANCISCO - In response to the assassination of Armenian newspaper editor Hrant Dink, San Francisco city officials and Bay Area human rights organizations joined the Armenian Bay Area ANC in condemning the murder and calling on the United States government to reaffirm the Armenian Genocide.

"Sadly, Hrant Dink's murder does not come as a surprise to us," said Roxanne Makasdjian, chairwoman of the Bay Area ANC, at the press conference on January 25th on the steps of San Francisco City Hall. "The ultra-nationalist and authoritarian forces which have created this atmosphere of fear, intolerance and hatred in Turkey, paved the way for Dink's assassination. These are the same forces which led to the Armenian Genocide, and that currently fuel the government's vast campaign of denial of the Armenian Genocide."

Participating in the press conference were representatives from the offices of California State Senator Carol Migden and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, San Francisco City and County Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin and Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, representatives from the city's Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International, The Genocide Education Project, the Holocaust Center of Northern California, and the San Francisco Bay Area Darfur Coalition, and San Francisco Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman.

"The United States State Department is speaking ironically with two heads," said Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin. "On the one hand, they are once again working to prevent the United States Congress from acknowledging the genocide of over a million and a half people…and at the same time…they're making these calls to virtually every municipality in the United States of America to pass a local resolution condemning holocaust denial in other countries."

Dink was shot dead in front of his "Agos" newspaper office on January 19. Thousands of people demonstrated in Istanbul for days following the tragedy chanting "we are all Hrant Dink we are all Armenians," and over 100,000 mourners marched in Dink's funeral procession. However, reports of the police officers who arrested the youth alleged to have murdered Dink posing for photographs and a national trend to purchase white caps like the one the youth was wearing at the time of the murder also emerged, pointing to the deep-seeded anti-Armenian ultra-nationalist sentiment that pervades much of Turkish society to this day.

"It's a tragedy that as a result of his death we've seen a voice silenced that was trying to bring truth to those that want to ignore history and deny what we all know occurred 90 years ago where 1.5 million Armenians were exterminated [in] a senseless and brutal series of acts," noted San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera. On behalf of the City of San Francisco, Herrera pledged to those attending the press conference: "We won't stand idly by and ignore history and promote intolerance and that we'll stand by you to ensure that the truth is told, that the work that Hrant Dink did is not in vein and we'll continue to spread that message to ensure that history and civility and tolerance is something that is promoted."

Dink had faced multiple prosecutions under a Turkish law prohibiting "insulting Turkishness" for statements he made affirming the Armenian Genocide. His murder came amid a growing tide of official Turkish government pressure to silence him and on the eve of a renewed drive by the US State Department to block Congress from commemorating this crime against humanity.

"Turkey should be held to answer," said Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi. "Their application to any kind of contemporary, to any kind of modern relationship economically, environmentally, and socially, should also be predicated in the fact that they recognize what occurred in 1915."

The executive director of the Holocaust Center of Northern California, Leslie Kane remarked, "Hatred and intolerance are unacceptable. The denial of the Armenian genocide is unacceptable. Indifference is unacceptable. It is our duty to learn about the Armenian genocide and to confront denial wherever it exists. And it is our duty to educate our youth so that the Armenian genocide is never forgotten, and that genocides the world over are permanently halted."