In Hrant's footsteps, in pursuit of justice

The founder and editor-in-chief of our newspaper, Hrant Dink, is being commemorated in front of the Sebat Apartment where he was shot, as he is every year. Despite the snowfall, thousands of people took their places in front of Agos’s former office for the commemoration ceremony that began at 14:30.

In the commemoration program presented by Bülent Aydın and Bircan Yorulmaz from "Friends of Hrant Dink," Bülent Aydın began his speech by greeting those in attendance, saying: “One end of this square is in Malatya, one end is in Diyarbakır, one end is in Ani, and one end is in Yerevan. But what unites our hearts is goodness, and what we desire is justice.”

The departed staff members of Agos newspaper, which was founded by Hrant Dink and will enter its 30th year this year, were also remembered during the program. The names of Sarkis Seropyan, Yervant Gobelyan, Agop Ayvaz, Oşin Çilingir, Diran Bakar, Mıgırdiç Margosyan, Nazar Büyüm, Yetvart Tomasyan, Ohannes Yaşar Uçar, Rafi Hermon Araks, and Aydın Engin were met with applause.

The genocide occurring in Gaza was not forgotten at the commemoration; solidarity messages were sent to Gaza, and slogans of “Down with the genocidal tyrants” were shouted.

In addition to the Dink Family, many friends, relatives, CHP Istanbul Provincial Chair Özgür Çelik, Berkin Elvan’s mother Gülsüm Elvan, lawyer Eren Keskin, the Saturday People, DEM Party MPs Kezban Konukçu Kok, Celal Fırat, and Sezai Temelli, DEM Party Istanbul Provincial Co-Chairs, EMEP MP İskender Bayhan, and TİP MP Ahmet Şık, as well as numerous politicians, journalists, and representatives of civil society organizations attended the commemoration. Slogans such as “Killers will be held accountable by the people,” “Long live the brotherhood of peoples,” “We are all Hrant, we are all Armenian,” “Right, law, justice,” and “No liberation alone, either all together or none of us” were frequently chanted.

From Silivri and Bakırköy to Şişli

Imprisoned politicians and civil society representatives also participated in the Hrant Dink commemoration with messages sent from prison. Resul Emrah Şahan, the Mayor of Şişli who has been detained since March 23, and Deputy Mayor Ebru Özdemir, as well as Gezi trial prisoner Osman Kavala who completed his 3,000th day in prison last week and Çiğdem Mater, who has been detained since 2022, conveyed the letters they wrote for Hrant Dink to the commemoration. Osman Kavala's letter was read by Kemal Gökhan Gürses, Çiğdem Mater's message by Gaye Boralıoğlu, Ebru Özdemir's letter by Bircan Yorulmaz, and Resul Emrah Şahan's message by Bülent Aydın.

The letters read during the commemoration in front of the Sebat Apartment were not merely an act of remembrance; they served as a record of the search for justice that has lasted for years, of unaddressed crimes, and of unbreakable bonds of solidarity. In the messages sent from prisons, the deepening sense of shame following the assassination of Hrant Dink, the culture of impunity fed by denial, and the demand for justice persistently maintained against this met in a common language; it was emphasized that being on the inside or the outside does not weaken this demand.

Deputy Mayor of Şişli, Ebru Özdemir: "That pavement is not silent, the search for justice continues"

Ebru Özdemir, the Deputy Mayor of Şişli who was arrested on March 28 and is currently held in Silivri Prison, addressed Dink in her letter, emphasizing the demand for justice that has continued for years since the murder. Özdemir's letter is as follows:

Dear Hrant,

I am writing these lines to you from afar, physically away from the place where we stand every year, yet present there in spirit.

The spot where you fell—the pavement in front of Agos—long ago ceased to be merely an address. Today, it stands as the silent yet defiant witness of a country that refuses to confront its past… When you were assassinated, it was not only a body that fell to the ground; our sense of justice was wounded, and the truth was shaken. Since that day, that pavement has not fallen silent. Every step that passes over it carries the weight of an unanswered question.

Each year, your friends return to that same place with the same determination, demanding justice. This demand has not weakened with time; on the contrary, it has grown deeper and taken root. For many years, I stood there every 19 January, Ahparig. On that pavement, I learned how to stand, how to speak through silence, how to face the conscience of a nation. You taught us the language not of fear, but of conscience. You showed us that truth cannot be carried without paying a price.

Today, I am not there, Ahparig. My absence is itself a clear indication of how disturbing the truth is still found to be. I write these lines to you from Silivri Prison, where I was brought for standing on the side of equality while carrying out my duty. From here, I see even more clearly why the words you spoke years ago were sought to be silenced.

Yet I know this: although those who speak the truth and demand justice are still forced to pay a price, your words did not fall silent where you fell. They echoed on that pavement year after year.

Even if we cannot be there, that question still stands in its place: Why is it that justice in this country has still not found its way?

I write this letter to you on behalf of all whose hearts beat for peace, democracy, and equality, to say once again that we have not forgotten. Once again, to say that we have not grown accustomed to this—and that we will NEVER give up. My voice may not reach there, but my words are there. We will continue to keep your name and your struggle alive, nurturing hope despite the darkness, spreading peace and fraternity, until the truth becomes visible and justice is done.

With respect, with love, with persistence — and without ever giving up…

Deputy Mayor of Şişli, Ebru Özdemir: "That pavement is not silent, the search for justice continues"

Ebru Özdemir, the Deputy Mayor of Şişli who was arrested on March 28 and is currently held in Silivri Prison, addressed Dink in her letter, emphasizing the demand for justice that has continued for years since the murder. Özdemir's letter is as follows:

Dear Ms. Rakel Dink and the Dink family,

Dear friends who have come together in the spirit of solidarity and struggle,
Dear residents of Şişli district,

I am writing these lines to you from my cell in Silivri. But do not think for a moment that I am not with you.

I am there.
I am standing right in front of the Sebat Apartment building.
I am at that very place where my brother fell.

I am right there with you, dear friends, as you gather every year in defiance of rage, enmity, death, and war, united by feelings of fraternity.

And today, you are also here with me.

At this very stop in Şişli’s struggle for democracy and co-existence, I feel your support and solidarity. I hear your voices.

Together, following Hrant’s footsteps, we are in pursuit of justice.
 When one of us is imprisoned, all of our spirits are wounded.
 When one of us falls, we are all hurt.
 But neither imprisonment nor bullets could kill our fraternity.

I give you my word: next year I will come to you in person.
 Together, we will sing songs of longing and reunion.

My greetings to you all.

Çiğdem Mater: We have no right to be hopeless

Çiğdem Mater, who has been held in Bakırköy Women's Prison since April 25, 2022, on the grounds of the Gezi Trial, participated in the Hrant Dink commemoration with a letter sent from prison. Looking back at the 19 years since Dink’s assassination, Mater pointed to a collective memory woven with unaddressed crimes, denial, and silence.

Dearest Hrant Dink,

One year after your assassination that everyone knew was coming, yet for which no one lifted a finger to prevent, and after we had laid you to rest with masses we were not accustomed to, in embarrassment and shame, a magazine that sought to commemorate you by referring to the masses in your funeral, asked a simple question ‘Where are we?’.

Today, 19 years later, I want to borrow that question: Where are we? Yes, we are here with determination and perseverance, yet also with shame.

Dearest Hrant Dink, you were not the first. Regrettably, you were not the first one in our exhaustive album of losses, where murderers live on without any shame or guilt, without ever being held to account, continuing their lives peacefully at home with their families. You were not the last one either. And yet I am sure you wished you would be the last one. That it would end with you. It did not. We could not make it so. We are ashamed.

For the fourth time, I am unable to be there in person on 19 January. On the day I wrote this letter for you, a column appeared in the country’s so-called ‘flagship’ newspaper about Gomidas,  a lesser-evil gesture at best. What was left unsaid was hidden in the last sentence: ‘He was exiled to Çankırı, released, did not speak for 22 years, and died in a mental hospital’. The answer to the question ‘why’ was, of course, nowhere to be found.

Crimes older than the century, new crimes added to the album day after day, those who never account for what they have done, those who persist in denial, those who fail to acknowledge their guilt, those who do not hesitate to commit more crimes in the absence of voices raised in objection, those who fail to see that each crime gives birth to another, those who become accomplices through their silence…

This sense of being too late drives one into despair. I will not deny it. And every time that despair takes hold of my mind, I think of you. I think of your determination to speak and to make yourself heard despite everything and everyone; of your insistence on the possibility of building a new language; of the value of not giving up  even when defeated. Your persistence brings me back to myself. And I know I am not alone. This is how you live on in the minds of so many of us whether we knew you or not.

Through both your presence and your absence, you continue to spark hope to generations, and remind us of the value of remembrance. At the expense of your own life, you did what you could with it. We, regretfully, have not been able to do what fell to us for the past 19 years. Just as we failed to do what fell to us in the hundreds of catastrophes, massacres, and murders of more than a century. We do apologise. We apologise for every crime in which we could not break our silence, for every time we left those who suffered to stand alone.

Once again, I lean on your strength. Despite the complicity that comes with silence, we have no right to fall into despair; we shall continue with hope. Today is the day when that hope painfully reminds us of itself. No matter where we are, behind bars or in exile, our hearts and our minds are right here, with this very hope.

Osman Kavala: There will be no decrease in our hope

Businessperson Osman Kavala, who was sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment in the Gezi Park trial and has been held in prison for 3,000 days despite the European Court of Human Rights' ruling that he "should be released immediately," also commemorated Hrant Dink with a letter written in his cell. Recalling that he was unable to attend the commemoration for the ninth time, Kavala stated that the struggle for justice that grew after the Dink murder is still a guiding light.

Dear friends,

I am deeply saddened that I am unable to be with you for the ninth time. Yet as this message is being read out, my thoughts will be with our dearest Hrant and all of you.

Those who have departed continue to live on in our inner world; some losses give rise to new realities in this world, and those who pass away find new life in new forms of togetherness.

The assassination of our dearest Hrant instilled a powerful resolve in all those who came together to seek the truth behind this murder. Hrant’s ideas, his personal qualities that left a profound impact on us, and the enduring voice of Agos, which he founded and which has remained vital for the past thirty years, have been a true compass for all of us who advocate for coming to terms with the past in a just manner, who strive for a future in which children are not turned into killers, and who demand justice for all.

Surely, friends of Hrant, the Hrant Dink Foundation, and Agos will continue to walk along this arduous path with perseverance. Our firm belief and hope that the unsolved murder of Hrant Dink will be fully brought to light, and that justice will prevail in our country, will never diminish.

With these feelings and thoughts, I join you in remembering Hrant Dink with deep love and respect, and I salute the struggle for justice carried on by his family and friends.