Arat Dink (Արատ Դինք born 1979) is a Turkish Armenian

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

and the executive editor of ''

Agos ''Agos'' (in Armenian: Ակօս, " furrow") is a bilingual weekly newspaper published in Istanbul, Turkey, established on 25 February 1996 by Hrant Dink, Luiz Bakar, Harutyun Şeşetyan, and Anna Turay. ''Agos'' has both Armenian and Turki ...

'', a bilingual Turkish

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...

weekly newspaper published in

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

. He is the son of Rakel Dink and Hrant Dink, the former editor-in-chief of the same paper, who was murdered by Ogün Samast, a Turkish

ultra-nationalist Ultranationalism, or extreme nationalism, is an extremist form of nationalism in which a country asserts or maintains hegemony, supremacy, or other forms of control over other nations (usually through violent coercion) to pursue its specific i ...

who was seventeen years old at the time.

Trial on Hrant Dink's assassination

Arat Dink was brought to trial as a co-defendant as the executive editor of Agos along with Serkis Seropyan, holder of the weekly's publishing license in the third and last case that was opened against Hrant Dink on charges of 'denigrating Turkishness' under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code. The charge was pressed in September 2006 after Agos republished a 14 July 2006 interview of Hrant Dink by the

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency ...

news agency where Hrant Dink referred to the 1915 massacre of Armenians in the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

. The charges against Hrant Dink were dropped in the first hearing of the case, originally scheduled for 22 March 2007 and rescheduled to 14 June 2007 due to his death and continued for Serkis Seropyan and Arat Dink, with the second hearing scheduled for 18 July 2007. At the court hearing, Arat Dink accused judges of contributing to his father's death by making him a target thanks to their high-profile judicial proceedings. "I think it is primitive, absurd and dangerous to consider as an insult to Turkish identity the recognition of a historic event as a genocide," he said, quoted by the Anatolia news agency.

Trial of Arat Dink for insulting Turkey's identity

On 11 October 2007 Arat Dink was convicted of insulting Turkey's identity for republishing his father's remarks. He was given a one-year suspended sentence for "insulting Turkishness", like his father before him.

Awards

He was awarded the Guardian Journalism Award by

Index on Censorship Index on Censorship is an organisation campaigning for freedom of expression. It produces a quarterly magazine of the same name from London. It is directed by the non-profit-making Writers and Scholars International, Ltd (WSI) in association wit ...

on 21 April 2008.

References

1979 births Living people Turkish human rights activists Turkish people of Armenian descent Ethnic Armenian journalists Turkish journalists Writers from Istanbul 21st-century Turkish writers {{turkey-journalist-stub