RAKEL DINK'S SPEECH
Your Honor, the President
of the Court, and the Honorable Judges,
My story begins with the
Armenian Varto tribe which is one of the
leftovers
of 1915. I was born in
1959 into the Armenian Varto tribe at the
borders
Mardin now located in the
Sirnak district. Today the town is called
Yolagzi. The name Varto
comes from Vartan, the name of my great
grandfather. The
remainder of the tribe migrated to Ýstanbul in
1978.
Their life in the village
until the migration and their time later in the
city were spent in
struggles at courts against the fraud that the
landlords
of the neighboring
villages manufactured on the deeds the tribe
held. These
neighboring villages were
[actually] built on our lands. Members of the
tribe were beaten, wounded
and miraculously survived murder attempts. My
father lived an honorable
life without denying his roots or his religion.
He passed away three years
ago in Brussels, his mind and soul still worried
about his land, as the
trials still continue. His children have
promised
him that they would
continue the
struggle. He never acted
cowardly, was never lazy, never laid an evil eye
on other’s work, and never
imposed any animosity upon us.
I met my beloved husband
Hrant Dink, whom I used to call Çutag, boarding
school; we grew up
together and we got married. They [the state]
stripped
away our boarding school
from us. With the help of Jesus Christ, we
overcame all the
obstacles, hardships. Together we kept worrying
about the
problems of our country.
And now, I cry with deep sadness.
All the time up to today,
we [the Armenians] were humiliated, insulted for
being Armenians; we heard
people use [the term] Armenian as a curse. We
heard it and we still keep
hearing it as such in the newspapers, TVs, birth
registration offices; [we
hear it] from public servants all the way to the
highest authorities.
Sometimes we were treated as if we were not
citizens
of this country, but
migrants from somewhere else. We still witness
all
these, this structure and
this understanding; this darkness continues to
produce murderers out of
babies.
Verse 21:3 of the Bible
states “God wishes rightfullness and justice
rather
than sacrifices.’ Today,
we see here the babies who have turned into
murderers; [but] where is
the darkness that created them [in the first
place]?
The darkness I point to is
not unknown. You can find pieces of this
darkness in the [Turkish]
Governorship, the Gendarmarie, the Armed Forces,
the National Intelligence
Agency, the Police, the Government, the
Opposition Party, the
[minority] parties that do not have a seat in
the
parliament, and even in
the media and [some] non-governmental
organizations. Their names
and their positions are known. They continuously
create murderers from
babies and they do it in order to serve Turkey.
We
have seen them in front of
AGOS right after the Sabiha Gokcen article [was
published – which is
reputed to have triggered the eventual
assassination
of Dink] and in front of
the court houses where my husband was being
tried.
But for some reason, the
justice system and the judiciary [in Turkey]
cannot reach to them, do
not want to reach to them. Because they know
that
if they dig further they
will see that this darkness is also there right
within them.
Therefore, if you
[yourselves] are not from within this darkness
and do not
approve it, you do not
agree with them to be courageous enough to go
deeper
and pull down all the
barriers that was put on this case, then be the
instrument of God’s
justice so that Turkey can be happy and this
becomes
the starting point of the
bright days for Turkey.
Your Honor, my husband was
tried for he wrote, for what he thought and
spoke. Even though an
innocent man, he was found guilty because of
this
[unjust] understanding of
the state. I believe that the [current]
expressions of the
[Turkish] state bear separatism, insult,
degradation;
they encourage and
multiply the [number of] baby murderers. In
short, the
source of this spring [of
injustice] is its understanding and discourse. I
am a compliant against
this discourse and the ones who converse in its
language.
I, as a member of the
people who have lived on these soils since Noah,
want
to feel, to see both my
children and myself as Armenian Turkish
citizens,
as [truly] equal.
Our proverb says “One who
denies his origin is a sinner”. What would you
expect from someone who
denies or hides his or her origin? How can you
establish a strong
building, a good character over a faulty
foundation? I
ask you, can you trust him
or her? If we do not deny our origin, does it
mean we are enemies?
My beloved husband worked
hard, never lied, never acted unjustly, and
never
said a word against his
country, either here or abroad. He was the
defender
of truth, and he lived as
a true son and a true citizen. In return, he
received the traitors’
bullet.
Whatever justice you will
see fit, it will not bring my husband back. None
of the rulings will equal
my loss of my husband. If justice is the
foundation of this land,
then I am in search of that justice. I want
Turkey
to be built upon such a
foundation. I want to see it not in words, I
want
to see it in daily life,
in discourse. Therefore, I demand that all those
in positions of
responsibility and the authorities [in Turkey]
declare: “we
could not, we did not want
to protect your husband, our citizen. We
knowingly committed a
crime, [and for that] we apologize.”
I demand from the
honorable court which is the representative of
the state
that all the criminals
receive the punishment they deserve. I feel no
hatred to any of them; on
the contrary, I find all of them miserable and
feel pity for them. I pray
for mercy for them with the love and justice of
Jesus Christ, one who
knows and sees all. I wish that with the help of
the
Holy Spirit, they can feel
that they need this mercy. And I request that
you act and decide in line
with your responsibility.
With my due respect,
Rakel Dink
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HOSROF DINK'S SPEECH
Your Honor the President
and the Members of the Court,
Hrant Dink, who was
brutally murdered on January 19th 2007, is my
brother.
I am here to seek justice
and see that the perpetrators of this crime
against humanity are
discovered.
My older brother Hrant, I
and my younger brother Yervant were born in
Malatya and shared the
most sacred and fundamental right of the
humankind,
that is, the right to life
as well as our hopes, our pains and our poverty.
Our father Sarkis and our
mother Gülvart divorced when we were children.
These conditions forced us
to grow up in an orphanage. We had to begin
learning the harsh
conditions of life on these lands in the
orphanage.
We thought we were born as
human beings. In time, we were given many
identities; we were
labeled against our will. We no longer belonged
either
to humankind or to the
earth. We became part of a particular region, a
particular people, a
particular family and [were attributed] many
more
different identities. Even
during our childhood, we were aware that other
children were different.
We saw and lived discrimination. We witnessed
the
crowds with intolerance to
diversity.
We shared our lives with
our wives: Hrant with his Rakel, I with my Zabel
and Yervant with his
Haygan. We grew in size with our children; we
transformed our pain into
happiness, our poverty into wealth and our hope
into eternity. We fought
together to ensure that our children, together
with the children of the
world, would not live through the pain and
difficulties we had to
experience.
We did not forget to laugh
with the people around us and share with them
the joy with the world. On
January 19th 2007, a bullet hit our happiness
and our family, which we
had built through our efforts, tears, joy and
hopes. On 19th of January
2007, we once again understood that we were
neither human nor belonged
to this earth.
My brother knew that our
ancestors were born on these lands and harvested
this land, that they had
turned grape into pectin, grape juice to wine,
wheat to bread, earth to
jug, copper to ewer, iron to plow, and that they
had dearly loved this
land, had caressed it with their hands and had
smelled it with their
noses. I [also] know he thought that all the
people
who lived and currently
live [here] share the same pain, and that all
their
happiness, sadness and
hopes are linked to each other.
After the murder of my
brother, [many] people expected that we would be
afraid and leave this
country. And for some, thinking as such was not
enough: they did
everything they could to make us leave. Some of
the
threats we received are in
the case files. But there was something they
could not understand, they
did not perceive: like all people born on these
soils, we had been born
and had grown up here; we had blended our sorrow
and hopes with the people
of this land. In short, we were born here and we
intend to die here. Hrant,
with all the opportunities he had, did not leave
this country; he did not
abandon his friends. This is what suits us. If
the truth comes out, this
trial which begins today will be a milestone for
Turkey .
In fact, this trial is one
where [we witness the challenge of] the rule of
law versus the people who
implement justice for their own interests and
material gains. In other
words, it will be between the people who believe
in the rule of law and the
people who say “[only] we [few] are the law, we
are the state”.
We [ourselves] do not have
anything to win or lose in this trial. Neither
the beloved we have lost
will come back, nor our will our lives get any
better. In essence, you
are the addressees of this case.
On the one hand, there is
the [Turkish] judiciary; on the other, an
organization that sees
itself above the state, has no respect for law
and
proves this through its
acts and executions. In its dark world, it can
decide who shall live or
die; it is both the judge and the executioner.
Under these circumstances
we, you and even little children, none of us are
safe.
The main question that
awaits an answer is: What will justice do
against
this power that can take
away the right to life of an Armenian citizen;
that can kill a judge in
his own seat?
There have been similar
structures in every country that are supported
[clandestinely] from
within state institutions. But these countries
were
able to move their country
from darkness to lightness by destroying these
structures through their
belief in justice and with [the help of] brave
judges. This trial is a
chance [for us] to do the same. We believe that
there are such brave
judges in our country as well.
The people shall provide
all the support they [the judges] will need. And
[as for] a last word? The
right to life of every citizen of Turkey is
sacred and under state
protection. And it will be Turkey that will win
or
lose at the end of this
trial.
Hosrof Dink
