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How, reasonably, could the Turkish government have prevented this?
They gave him a 6 month sentence for saying the genocide happened.
Reply 3
Agent Smith
How, reasonably, could the Turkish government have prevented this?


I understand what you are saying but, in my view the government and its refusal to repeal Article 301 (a.k.a. the law against insulting Turkishness) does not set a good example for the nationalists in Turkey.
Reply 4
-1984-
An ultra-nationalist Turkish man has shot dead a prominent Turkish-Armenian writer in a busy street in Istanbul.

How seriously can we take Turkey's EU membership if it cannot even tolerate freedom of speech?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6279241.stm


So if some private individual in Britain killed a critic of the Iraq war, you'd say that Britain doesn't allow free speech?
-1984-
An ultra-nationalist Turkish man has shot dead a prominent Turkish-Armenian writer in a busy street in Istanbul.

How seriously can we take Turkey's EU membership if it cannot even tolerate freedom of speech?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6279241.stm


One shooting leads you to the conclusion we shouldn't allow Turkey in?

If we let Turkey in, it will help fuse relations between Islam and the West. Turkey would have to learn to become tolerant VERY QUICKLY. It will learn much faster if it joins the EU.
Reply 6
The EU shouldn't be there to solve Turkey's problems. It may have been the case in the past with Spain, Greece and Portugal admitted for political reasons but the EU is a different entity now. If Turkey is to join it really needs to have all these problems sorted out already.

You probably shouldn't read too much into one murder but there does seem to have been a rise in Turkish nationalism in the past decade. Theres a growing anti-Europe feeling and I really can't see them joining, even if the Cyprus problem is sorted out.
King Of Leon
The EU shouldn't be there to solve Turkey's problems. It may have been the case in the past with Spain, Greece and Portugal admitted for political reasons but the EU is a different entity now. If Turkey is to join it really needs to have all these problems sorted out already.

You probably shouldn't read too much into one murder but there does seem to have been a rise in Turkish nationalism in the past decade. Theres a growing anti-Europe feeling and I really can't see them joining, even if the Cyprus problem is sorted out.


It wouldn't just solve Turkey's problems though would it? It would aid some reconciliation between two seeminlgy warring global factions. And hey, i would rather let them join and help them sort out their problems more quickly, than sit back and watch negative ideologies continue.
Reply 8
What did he expect? Telling fellow Turks that they are genocidal maniacs in a land where fully automatic weapons are common and easily manipulated young men eager to prove a point are even more common.
Reply 9
Bismarck
So if some private individual in Britain killed a critic of the Iraq war, you'd say that Britain doesn't allow free speech?


I have no intention to blame the entire country for this tragic incident, and by no means am I against Turkey's membership of the European Union.

In fact, I am of Turkish ancestry and I do recognise the huge advantages for Turkey and the EU and even world stability in general if Turkey was to be admitted into the Union. however, lately I have had second thoughts.

The last decade has seen a significant rise in nationalism and religious fundamentalism in Turkey. Have no doubt, even with the rise in Islamic fundamentalism, Turkey is still the most liberal and open Muslim-majority country in the world but the trend is not pleasing.


Just last year a judge was shot by an Islamic extremist and now this assassination by an ultra-nationalist.

To catch up with the rest of the EU, Turkey has to experience a sort of cultural revolution to achieve the freedom of expression and speech which the EU requires.
Reply 10
The_Bear
What did he expect? Telling fellow Turks that they are genocidal maniacs in a land where fully automatic weapons are common and easily manipulated young men eager to prove a point are even more common.


The problem is that the way in which this writer wrote about the Armenian genocide was done very sensitively and subtly to engage rather than provoke Turkish sensibilities.

Apparently the assassinator, after shooting Dink, shouted 'I have killed an Armenian, I have killed an Armenian'. This is down to a rise in anti-Armenian feelings, which is a part of a wider anti-Western feelings which have become rampant in the republic.
Reply 11
Did you expect him to say "You have been erased" Arnie style?
ForeverIsMyName
They gave him a 6 month sentence for saying the genocide happened.



Well lies like that are not acceptable.
Reply 13
cottonmouth
One shooting leads you to the conclusion we shouldn't allow Turkey in?

If we let Turkey in, it will help fuse relations between Islam and the West. Turkey would have to learn to become tolerant VERY QUICKLY. It will learn much faster if it joins the EU.


Yes. But in the interests of goodwill it could start by making some baby steps now. It's not too much to ask.
Reply 14
-1984-
An ultra-nationalist Turkish man has shot dead a prominent Turkish-Armenian writer in a busy street in Istanbul.

How seriously can we take Turkey's EU membership if it cannot even tolerate freedom of speech?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6279241.stm


:eek: :eek: Holy mother of Oats. UK might get kicked out of the EU because Litvenenko died. Someone save us. :eek: :eek:


oh and Turkey shouldn't be the in the EU. Not because of Islam or anything but for other practical reasons. Like the fact that the Army is willing to topple any government it doesn't like. We can't have a country that doesn't respect the choice of the people.
Reply 15
That's ridiculous to blame the entire government for one man's actions :rolleyes:
Reply 16
Apollo
That's ridiculous to blame the entire government for one man's actions :rolleyes:


I was not blaming the entire government, nor every single Turkish citizen, but the general lack of freedom to express ones opinion in Turkey.
Reply 17
Tibia
:eek: :eek: Holy mother of Oats. UK might get kicked out of the EU because Litvenenko died. Someone save us. :eek: :eek:


oh and Turkey shouldn't be the in the EU. Not because of Islam or anything but for other practical reasons. Like the fact that the Army is willing to topple any government it doesn't like. We can't have a country that doesn't respect the choice of the people.


To compare yesterdays assassination in Istanbul to the murder of Litvenenko in London would be absurd. Everyone knows the Russian secret service killed Litvenenko, but yesterdays incident was due to the unacceptance of Turkish society and the Turkish government to tolerate discussion of the Armenian genocide.

If you want an analogy, I would be more inclined to compare yesterdays situation to the assassination of Martin Luther King in the US.


As for your second point, while it may be ironic, the Turkish military is the protector of democracy and secularism in the Turkish republic. It has overthrown two or three governments in the past but within a few months, it returned power to the public.

Furthermore, if you don't want Turkey in the EU for this reason, then why was the EU so keen on accepting Spain, Greece and to a certain extent the former Soviet states whose experience with democracy was no maturer than the current Iraqi government?
Reply 18
I think France is in the process of passing a law making it illegal to deny the Armenian genocide while Turkey's passed a law making it illegal to not deny it.

Words fail.
Reply 19
-1984-
To compare yesterdays assassination in Istanbul to the murder of Litvenenko in London would be absurd. Everyone knows the Russian secret service killed Litvenenko, but yesterdays incident was due to the unacceptance of Turkish society and the Turkish government to tolerate discussion of the Armenian genocide.

If you want an analogy, I would be more inclined to compare yesterdays situation to the assassination of Martin Luther King in the US.


As for your second point, while it may be ironic, the Turkish military is the protector of democracy and secularism in the Turkish republic. It has overthrown two or three governments in the past but within a few months, it returned power to the public.

Furthermore, if you don't want Turkey in the EU for this reason, then why was the EU so keen on accepting Spain, Greece and to a certain extent the former Soviet states whose experience with democracy was no maturer than the current Iraqi government?


If people don't want secularism. Is their choice. Wtf is the point of having a democracy if the army decides in the end who you can govern you? That isn't democracy. That is the Army bullying the people.

Tony Blair might be a prick to the army. The soldiers have to live like rats and they don' have adequate equipments. He took them to Iraq for false reasons yet i haven't heard them threatening to take him out.


Edit: MLK was killed by an ex convict. Not by the government. It would have been to embarrassing. Especially during the unpopular Vietnam war.

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