Nükhet İpekçi, the daughter of journalist Abdi İpekçi, who was killed in 1979; Sezen Öz, the wife of prosecutor Doğan Öz, who was killed in 1978 while investigating illegal structures inside the military and other state agencies; and Filiz Ali, the daughter of socialist writer Sabahattin Ali who was killed in 1948, attended the Dink trial on Monday to show their support for Dink’s family.
Anter Anter, the son of Musa Anter, a Kurdish writer who was killed in 1992 in Diyarbakır allegedly by an illegal structure inside the gendarmerie known as JİTEM, recalled that there used to be a movement called the “Saturday Mothers” who met on Saturdays to protest unresolved murders. “That campaign was started mainly due to my father’s death. In those times, it was very hard to protest against this. We had to deal with the pain inside ourselves because of the bans.
Later, the real faces behind this started to show. There was the Susurluk [incident of 1996], Ergenekon and Poyrazköy [where arms belonging to the Ergenekon group allegedly to be used in assassinations were found in 2009] and other plots were exposed. There were the coup plans. This was possible mainly due to the AK Party [Justice and Development Party] government coming to power. In times of coalition governments, they could pass the buck to each other. But the AK Party, being a single-party government, could really look into these incidents. With the Kurdish initiative they started as well as other democratic initiatives, the current atmosphere has become possible.” He said he had been living in Sweden for 41 years.
Orhan Miroğlu, a witness in the Musa Anter murder trial, said the increasing boldness on the part of victims’ families was connected to the ongoing political process. “Everyone has been living with their own pain in their own private sphere until today. When society started a profound discussion to solve the Kurdish question, everyone started questioning the past. The murders of Abdi İpekçi, Musa Anter, Uğur Mumcu and Hrant Dink all seem to be links in the same chain -- none of those are unconnected. This is what we have seen. For this reason, as Turkey finally has the courage to face its own darkness, the families feel the need to share this privately held pain with each other and with society. I think this movement will continue to grow with symbolically important monuments, museums and even associations. This is a very positive development. The political institution should also take on a more active role in this; for example, they could apologize to the victims’ families.”
Nilgün Soydan, the daughter of union leader Kemal Türkler, said: “We came together from time to time as families of assassinated intellectuals. Most of our murder cases ended due to the statute of limitations. All the murderers were somehow protected under certain wings. We struggled hard for years, but now the ongoing case is Hrant Dink. We are giving our support to Dink’s family so they won’t have to go through what we had to go through. We still want justice. His son Arat said, ‘They have been making fun of us in these courts for three years.’ I told him when I first saw him after that: ‘They have been making fun of us for 30 years. You still have a long way to go.’ And he understood what I meant.”
