Church service

[Choir singing]

00:00

Rakel and Arat in church

CAMPBELL: It is nearly a century since Armenians were massacred in Turkey, but the killing goes on. At a church in Istanbul, family and friends have come to honour and mourn the latest victim.

00:17

Hrant Dink photo

Hrant Dink was a writer who tried to bring about reconciliation between Turks and Armenians. He was murdered for his trouble.

00:41

Rally

At this memorial led by his widow Rakel, fellow writers remembered a man who would dared to hope.

00:58

ASLI ERDOGAN: [Author] Hrant Dink represents the best part of us, the most peaceful part. I think everybody feels something

01:10

Asli. Super:
Asli Erdogan
Author

in himself is killed, is murdered. The peace… I think more than anything else he represents at least some sort of peace.

01:17

Newspaper press

Music

01:27

Hrant Dink at newspaper press

CAMPBELL: We met Hrant Dink two years ago, when he was editing an Armenian language newspaper called Argos. In a series of articles he had discussed a dark chapter in Turkish history, the forced deportation of Armenians in 1915.

01:35

File footage. Hrant Dink
Super:
2006

HRANT DINK: [Archive footage] For the Armenian people, 1915 signifies the year when their existence as a nation and their right to live in that nation and land was destroyed.

01:56

Dink reads ‘Argos’

CAMPBELL: In calling it genocide he had brought down the wrath of the Turkish states. A magistrate had just sentenced him to six months in prison for insulting Turkishness.

02:20

File footage. Hrant Dink
Super:
2006

HRANT DINK: [Archive footage] What is really dangerous for those who are in charge in Turkey is the awakening from inside.

02:33

Archival Dink’s body lying on pavement

Music

02:42

CAMPBELL: A year later while he was appealing his conviction, Hrant Dink was ambushed and shot. The publisher of Argos, Sarkis Seropyan, discovered his body as he left the office.

02:47

SARKIS SEROPYAN: We, as the closest associates of Hrant Dink were probably

03:06

Sarkis Seropyan

the last ones to realise that such a danger did in fact exist. Hrant, through his writing and articles, often expressed if not a fear, a sense of anxiety – a danger like that of a frightened dove.

03:13

Archival Dink’s body lying on pavement

Music

03:47

CAMPBELL: The murder revived tensions that have plagued this land since the days of Gallipoli.

03:52

Archival– Dink’s funeral march

At his funeral more than a hundred thousand people marched in protest, many carrying placards proclaiming “We are all Hrant Dink” but some applauded.

03:57

Photos. Ogun Samast from CCTV

When this nineteen-year old nationalist, Ogun Samast, was charged with Dink’s murder, police gave him a Turkish flag to hold as they posed for the cameras.

04:17

Sarkis Seropyan

SARKIS SEROPYAN: I felt sick in the stomach and great pain when I saw the photo,

04:30

Ogun Samast with police

but unfortunately there are many people who have been pumped full of ultra nationalism.

04:46

Trabzon

Music

04:58

CAMPBELL:  The Black Sea Port of Trabzon is renown as a hotbed for ultra nationalists. It’s home to more than a dozen people arrested over Hrant Dink’s murder,

05:06

Photo. – Yasin Hayal – guns & daggers

including the alleged mastermind, twenty-six year old Yasin Hayal.

05:19

Fuat Turgut greets Yasin’s family

We travelled there with a controversial lawyer, Fuat Turgut who has offered his services for free to Hayal and his parents.

05:331

Turkish flag in family house

FUAT TURGUT: [to Yasin’s parents] So why do you think Yasin might have agreed to such a thing?

05:42

Yasin’s parents

YASIN’S MOTHER: He might have been tricked, because he loves his country and his nation.

05:48

YASIN’S FATHER: To them, Yasin is someone who loves his country his nation, his flag – and he is someone they believe would do anything for his country.

05:53

Family look at photos – Yasin with guns and daggers

CAMPBELL: The evidence against him seems damning. Yasin Hayal has an obvious penchant for weapons from his time in the army, but his parents believe the killing must have been orchestrated by more powerful forces.

06:07

Yasin arm photos

YASIN’S FATHER: All we want is justice for our son to prevail. If our son is guilty he should be punished. But whoever led these kids into this, whoever directed them, should be punished as well.

06:27

Fuat Turgut

FUAT TURGUT: It is said my client commissioned the hit. But what my client did was to give a gun and 180 new Turkish lira. No one would commit murder for 180 Turkish lira. No one would commit murder just because they were given a gun, without any reason.

06:51

Fuat Turgut & Yasin’s parents

CAMPBELL: Fuat Turgut is himself an ultra nationalist, facing charges for plotting to kill a writer, charges he strenuously denies, but he admits he has little sympathy for Hrant Dink.

07:16

Fuat Turgut

FUAT TURGUT: I was in Antalya when I heard that Hrant Dink was killed. I’d be two-faced if I said that I was very sad.

07:30

Dink’s body on footpath

He was portrayed as a poor innocent journalist with holes in his shoes. I know that Hrant Dink was a pure enemy of the Turks.

07:43

Genocide  Museum photos

Music

07:57

CAMPBELL: At first glance, it seems hard to understand how Turkey could deny there was genocide. For centuries Turks and Armenians had lived side by side in the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire but in World War I, some Armenians took sides with invading Russians. In reprisal Turkish leaders ordered a mass deportation of Armenians to the Syrian Desert. Historians say as many as a million people perished, but history is viewed very differently in Turkey.

08:07

Fuat Turgut

FUAT TURGUT: We never did such a thing.

08:51

Genocide  Museum photos

And we Turks feel very bad when we are falsely accused of it. We did not carry out genocide. On the contrary, the Armenians carried out genocide against us.

08:58

Armenia. Wreath laying ceremony Army Day

Music

09:11

CAMPBELL: Armenia is now a tiny State on Turkey’s north-east border. Until 1991 it was a Republic of the Soviet Union, now it’s an independent country. Like Israel, its identity is defined by what it sees as a Holocaust.

09:18

Oskanian lays flower

Vartan Oskanian is Armenia’s Foreign Minister and the grandson of deported Armenians.

09:39

Oskanian. Super:
Vartan Oskanian
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Armenia

VARTAN OSKANIAN: [Minister of Foreign Affairs, Armenia] It was a, you know, genocide committed against the Armenian people that was a huge tragedy and the sense of tragedy is being exacerbated with every passing day as Turkey continues to deny. We think that wound can be healed only if Turkey recognises it.

09:48

Statue Mother Armenia

Music

10:07

CAMPBELL: The statue Mother Armenia is a symbol of the importance of older women in this society.

10:22

Yerevan

It overlooks the capital of Yerevan where just a handful of deportees are still alive.

10:28

Campbell visits Mari

Mari Vardanyan is a hundred and two years old. She is sometimes confused about the present but remembers her childhood as if it happened yesterday.

10:44

Mari

MARI VARDANYAN: Seven or eight of us young children were about to be thrown into a pit and buried alive. My aunt said “These are my children”, and she picked up two of us – me and my brother Kevork.

10:56

Genocide photos

CAMPBELL: She survived to see family and friends die for no other reason than their race. One of her most vivid memories is the threat Turks made against the local priest.

11:18

Mari

MARI VARDANYAN: One day they attached a bowl to the end of a rope with a note to the priest, saying “If you’re still around in three days

11:34

Photo. Hanged priests

we will use this rope to hang you – and this bowl to drink your blood”.

11:47

Mari

That’s how the Turks behaved.

11:55

Genocide Monument & Spire

Music

12:00

Inside museum

CAMPBELL: To keep the memory alive, Armenia has built a giant museum of genocide. In meticulous detail it sets out the events of expulsion and persecution. Telegrams ordering the Armenian’s removal, eyewitness accounts of the massacres, graphic photos of the victims – even a Turkish official appearing to taunt starving children with the loaf of bread.

12:09

Verjine and Knarik at museum

VERJINE SVAZLIAN: The holocaust of the Jews later on was carried out by more advanced methods.

12:45

KNARIK AVAKIAN: What more proof do they need to acknowledge the Armenian genocide?

12:54

CAMPBELL: Verjine Svazlian and her daughter Knarik Avakian are frequent visitors here. They’re historians who have spent their lives cataloguing the crimes. Dr Svazlian is convinced Turks wanted to wipe out minorities and create an ethnically pure state.

12:58

Verjine/Photos

DR VERJINE SVAZLIAN: Turkey ordered that it be cleansed of its Christian minorities. Neither the Armenians nor the Greeks had the right to live there any longer. The century-old hatred and intolerance of Armenians evolved to the perpetration of genocide. Those atrocities were not mere massacres. They can only be dignified as genocide. The world should distinguish these two terms, and speak out – in particular, President Bush.

13:19

[Church bell]

14:05

Khor Vrap monastery

CAMPBELL: Turkey’s greatest fear is that Armenians may try to reclaim their land. The Khor Vrap Monastery was once in the centre of Armenia - now it marks the border with Turkey.

14:10

Khor Vrap monastery service

Most of the churches, farms and villages from which they were expelled, are on the other side. After World War I, Turkey swallowed up what Armenians see as their traditional land -

14:26

Mt Ararat

even Mt Ararat, the symbol of the Armenian nation.

14:46

Verjine

DR VERJINE SVAZLIAN: As Hrant Dink once put it, even if Armenians were flown out by golden aeroplanes it would be nothing short of genocide, as they were uprooted from their birthplace and deprived of their homeland.

14:52

Turkish-Armenian border

CAMPBELL: Even today Turkey refuses to have diplomatic relations with Armenia.

15:10

Oskanian. Super:
Vartan Oskanian
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Armenia

VARTAN OSKANIAN: Well it’s Turkey’s policy. Armenia considers that the border from our side is open.

15:16

Turkish-Armenian border

We’ve never closed it. We will not. We think the state of affairs between our two countries today does not warrant a closed border. We’re not at war with each other.

15:24

Change of guard Ataturk’s mausoleum

15:37

CAMPBELL: Across the border in Turkey, many feel Armenians owe them an apology. Every day in the capital, Ankara, soldiers march to the tomb of Kemal Ataturk who led the defence of Gallipoli against allied invaders.

15:40

In 1919, he rescued Turks from disaster, establishing the state of Turkey from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. His battles were not just with the allies, but with Armenians who took up arms against the Ottoman State.

16:01

Suat in corridor then office

Suat Kiniklioglu is a member of the ruling Justice Party. His grandfather was killed by Armenians fighting with the allies.

16:20

Suat. Super: Suat Kiniklioglu
MP, Justice Party

SUAT KINIKLIOGLU: [MP, Justice Party] 1915, you have a crumbling empire. You have the Armenian siding with the Russians. There’s certainly a fringe within the Ottoman government that appears to have not the most friendliest of views about Armenians. But there is no determined programmatic you know, will of extermination of a particular ethnic group and… I think…

16:29

CAMPBELL: Are you sure about that? I mean did you go to the genocide museum when you were in Armenia?

16:54

SUAT KINIKLIOGLU: Yes I did.

16:57

CAMPBELL: I mean here we have clearly Turkish soldiers leading out ...

16:59

SUAT KINIKLIOGLU: Yes they were removed.

CAMPBELL: Yes.

SUAT KINIKLIOGLU: Yes they were removed to another territory.

CAMPBELL: Forcibly removed.

death.

17:03

SUAT KINIKLIOGLU: That’s true.

CAMPBELL: To the Syrian Desert.

SUAT KINIKLIOGLU: Yes but…

CAMPBELL: Where they died. I mean here are photos of people in the Syrian Desert who have starved to

SUAT KINIKLIOGLU: Exactly, that’s true.

CAMPBELL: I mean this was a government policy.

SUAT KINIKLIOGLU: No one is, look no one is challenging that. Yes many

17:12

of these things happened, it’s true but the problem is, the difference between this a government policy to remove an ethnic community from one place to, out of the war theatre basically, and a planned extermination of a population such as done in World War II is a very different thing.

17:17

Demonstration

PROTESTORS CHANTING: All of us have awakened. All of us.

17:36

CAMPBELL: Writers who challenge the official version of history risk imprisonment. Article 301 of the Criminal Code prohibits insulting Turkishness.

17:42

Woman protestor

WOMAN PROTESTOR: Hrant Dink can still be among us in the struggle for democracy.

17:54

Police at rally

CAMPBELL: Ultra nationalist lawyers have used it to prosecute anyone who suggests there was genocide. Despite his 301 conviction, Dink remained a vocal critic but his family now declines to speak because of death threats.

17:57

Asli at demonstration

Asli Erdogan is a leading novelist who was a friend of Hrant Dink.

18:17

Asli. Super: 
Asli Erdogan
Author

CAMPBELL: Do you think writers can afford to stay silent now?

18:22

ASLI ERDOGAN: I think on the contrary that we have never had that luxury to be silent. On the other hand these kind of threats are just number one reason that the writers should speak up so who is doing to defend freedom of talk more than the writers and journalists. It is our job.

18:25

Archival. Orhan Pamuk battling his way through crowd into court

CAMPBELL: The most prominent target of ultra nationalists has been Orhan Pamuk who was recently awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Two years ago, we filmed him fighting an attempt to jail him for violating Article 301.

ORHAN PAMUK: I made a comment to a Swiss newspaper

18:52

Orhan. Super: Orhan Pamuk
Author

about the fact that a million Armenians were killed here and then we are unfortunately the nation, we are not talking about this thing. This was a taboo, which lies at the heart of modern Turkish Republic.

19:09

Archival– Yasin Hayal – alights bus – led into court

CAMPBELL: Orhan Pamuk beat the prosecution but is now in fear of Hrant Dink’s killers. When the alleged mastermind Yasin Hayal was brought into court last year, he had this chilling warning for Pamuk.

YASIN HAYAL: Orhan Pamuk should be smart!

19:31

CAMPBELL: Lawyer Fuat Turgut who derides Pamuk by giving him an Armenian name, says it was not a threat, just sensible advice.

19:48

Fuat Turgut

FUAT TURGUT: I repeat my client’s statement and said I agreed with what he had told Orhannes Pamukyan, that he should stop making false accusations against the Turkish people and Turkish government. There is no sense in looking for a threat in this.

19:57

Fuat Turgut slow motion, smoking

CAMPBELL: But Fuat Turgut now stands accused of plotting to murder Pamuk.

20:15

Riot police

In January, he was arrested in a massive police swoop on ultra nationalists. Turgut and thirty others, including two former generals were allegedly plotting to overthrow the government after murdering supposed traitors. Turgut is now on bail defending the charges.

FUAT TURGUT: It is ridiculous to say that

20:21

Fuat Turgut

I am a member of a terrorist organisation.

20:47

Suat. Super: Suat Kiniklioglu. Foreign Affairs Commission Turkey

SUAT KINIKLIOGLU: They are typical paranoid ultra nationalists who cannot adjust to a global world that is open, transparent, more liberal, and they cannot just digest the fact that this country is on its way to become a European democracy.

20:52

Bosphorus

Music

21:13

CAMPBELL: The controversy over Dink’s murder has crystallised debate about Turkey’s future. The Justice Party came to power in 2003, ending decades of rule by secular nationalists. While its critics accuse it of being Islamist, the Justice Party insists it stands for moderation. Under pressure from the European Union, it has promised to abolish Article 301.

21:22

SUAT KINIKLIOGLU: We are determined that

21:55

Suat

such cases will no longer be opened against people like Orhan Pamuk and others. I may not agree with Orhan Pamuk and what he says but I think he has a right to say it.

21:58

Demonstration

CAMPBELL: But so far the government’s promise has come to nought.

22:08

Asli

ASLI ERDOGAN: I don’t think 301 is likely to be banned. It will be changed into another form, but there will be another 301, 401, 501, 601 – whatever.

22:19

Dink – memorial church service

CAMPBELL: In a cruel aftermath to Dink’s murder, his son Arat and his publisher Sarkis Seropyan, have been given suspended prison sentences under a 301 prosecution brought by ultra nationalists.

22:38

Fuat Turgut

FUAT TURGUT: We got a conviction against Hrant Dink for six months. We will also take his beneficiaries to court for compensation because he falsely accused us Turks of genocide.

22:56

Sarkis Seropyan

SARKIS SEROPYAN: As a close friend of the family… I can say that Hrant Dink’s family is determined to continue his work.

23:07

Memorial Service at Hrant Dink’s grave

CAMPBELL: The killing of Hrant Dink has exposed the raw wounds of Turkey’s past. Some hope it will galvanise Turkey to admit its mistakes. Others fear there will be still more victims of a never-ending conflict.

23:27

Credits

Reporter : Eric Campbell 

Camera: David Martin

              Brant Cumming

Producer : Ian Altschwager

Editor :  Bryan Milliss

23:53