Hakan Aydin

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is set to consider legislation, authored by the panel’s chairman Joe Biden (D-DE), condemning the murder of Hrant Dink. This resolution, S.Res.65, specifically cites that Hrant Dink “was prosecuted under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code for speaking about the Armenian Genocide,” and urges the Turkish government to repeal this anti-free speech law. The legislation will be “marked up” by the Committee on Tuesday, March 6th at 2:15 pm.

A prominent Turkish newspaper columnist Fatih Cekirge wrote an article today, which was published in Hurriyet, a Turkish newspaper. Excerpt below:

US SENATE, INSTEAD OF FACING UP TO A LOBBY, WHY NOT FACE UP TO REALITY?

The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee is coming together to protest the murder of Hrant Dink. The US Congress, which encompasses the Senate, will also come together to decide on the so-called Armenian genocide bill. And we, seeing this stance from the US Congress, feel that we now have the right to pose the most definitive questions possible at this juncture to the US, which is the most important ally we have had during the history of our Republic.

Now think: one morning in Turkey, I saw the dead, wracked body of the most important name in my profession lying on the street. This was Ugur Mumcu, who was assassinated.

We learned from him how to ask questions….. We learned from him what it was to engage in the honorable work of a journalist, valueing the nation, the flag, and independence while doing so. And then one morning, dark hands took his life right in front of his home…..

Ahmet Taner Kislali….. A man who was a window from this world looking out onto civilizations; they killed him too…..

Cetin Emec…..The legendary lord of the news; they shot him too.

And then there was of course Abdi Ipekci, a great great name whose end came in a chain of darkness that we were never even able to understand; they shot him too.

And then there was the silent hero of information, Bedrettin Comert……he too a victim of murder.

Professor Bahriye Ucok, Professor Muammer Aksoy, and Necip Hablemitoglu…..

But that’s not all; Turan Dursun, Kurdish intellectual Musa Anter, Jewish businessman Jak Kamhi, Ozdemir Sabanci…..

And last of all, Hrant Dink, a man who was shot and silenced because he was a son of this nation, and because he was a journalist.

And now the US Senate is preparing to come together to protest the murder of Hrant Dink.

And so do we not have the right to ask the following?: Why is it that the same commission which is coming together to protest Hrant Dink did not feel the need to do so for the Ugur Mumcus, the Kislalis, the Emeces, the Ipekcis and the Comerts of Turkey?

And more importantly…..our country has lost 35 thousand fighting men in the name of Turkey…..why is it that our ally from Korea to Afghanistan, from Bosnia to Somalia, has never seen fit to offer condolences? We ask then what exactly it is that this commission, which has never issued a message of condolence for these 35 thousand dead soldiers of ours, is meaning to do in meeting to protest the death of a national son of ours and our sibling Hrant Dink? I have ionly one thing to say: what the US Senate is doing is a great shame to this great land and people.

And as a last word: Hey US Senate, instead of facing up to a lobby, why not face up to reality?