Journalist gets prison sentence for praising Dink murder

A journalist in Samsun was sentenced to a one year and 11-month prison term for praising a crime and inciting hatred in a newspaper article where he supported the murder of Hrant Dink.

Hrant Dink, the Armenian-Turkish journalist, was shot dead outside the Agos newspaper office in Şişli on Jan. 19, 2007. In the ensuing investigation the police arrested the gunman, Ogün Samast, and his accomplice, Yasin Hayal. Samast was ultimately sentenced to 22 years and ten months imprisonment on charges of "premeditated murder" and "unlicensed possession of weapons," and Hayal was found guilty of soliciting Dink's murder -- giving Samast the idea and supplying him with a weapon and money -- and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Journalist Okan Baş praised Samast and Dink's killing in a column he wrote for Statüko, a bimonthly magazine in Samsun. Baş was sentenced to one year and three months in prison for inciting hatred under Article 216 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK). In his column titled “Gentlemen, what harm have the nationalists done to you?” Baş, managing editor of the magazine, wrote: “You know, a young man like Ogün Samast has been condemned to serve a heavy penalty for shooting Hrant, who said that ‘A Turk's blood is filthy'. He did a good thing, didn't he?”

Baş continued in his column: “If the state does not do what it needs to do, and tolerates the foreigner who says “Turkish blood is filthy,” if the state runs over the principles of nationalism trying to ingratiate itself with the Armenians, then people will rise up and do something about it. It doesn't mean a thing to put this man on a trial.”

The “Say Stop to Racism and Nationalism!” group filed a lawsuit against Baş, and a criminal complaint was issued for offenses including praising the crime and the criminal, provoking hatred and enmity, and incitement to commit a crime, as well as insulting the memory of a deceased person.

The trial concluded in October, and Samsun Second Criminal Court Judge Murat Sarıyıldız recently announced the sentence of one year and 11 months in total; 15 months according to the Article 215 of the TCK for “praising the crime and the criminal,” and eight months according to Article 216 for “provoking hatred.” The punishment has been postponed for five years.

Hakan Bakırcıoğlu, an attorney for the Dink family, commented that the verdict was fair and added, “All the things that were written against Dink created an atmosphere of a lynch mob that led to his eventual murder. Punishing such behavior will prevent other similar incidents.” Attorney Bakırcıoğlu added that this particular case was one of the few in which Article 216 was properly applied.