Hrant Dink's son sentenced for father's speech

Forget global politics, here is Turkey's real 'response' to Armenian Genocide recognition. This individual example perfectly shows that, although century-long, Armenian Genocide issue is very current and in a sense never ended in Turkey, taking different forms.

Apparently, I was overly 'optimistic' in my last post in support to Agos newspaper, speculating that Turkish court will not press charges. Why? Yes, yes, Turkey's 'European aspirations'... I wonder what EU's reaction will be? Or is this also "not right time"? It never is, isn't it?

"It's a judicial scandal", says Ozlem Dalkiran, who followed the trial for the Helsinki Citizens Assembly, a European human rights group.

BBC's Sarah Rainsford has more...

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Reporters Without Borders today voiced “outrage” at a one-year [suspended] prison sentence against the son of murdered journalist Hrant Dink, Arat Dink, editor-in-chief of the weekly Agos, and his editor Serkis Seropyan, using the same law under which his father had been prosecuted.

A court in the Sisli district of Istanbul found Arat Dink and Serkis Seropyan guilty of “insulting Turkish identity” for publishing an interview in Agos which Hrant Dink gave to Reuters in 2006 in which he termed as genocide the massacres of Armenians from 1915-17, remarks for which Hrant Dink was prosecuted at the time. [and later murdered]
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Bianet:
At one of the hearings, Arat Dink repeated his father's words, saying: "If someone keeps asking me, '[...] tell me, was it a genocide, how would you describe it?', then I cannot deny myself. I cannot deny my history and identity. I said the same thing before and it made the front pages in Turkish newspapers, but no trial was opened. Because at that time there was no operation going on to show me my place..."
Seropyan had said: "I appear as the newspaper owner. If we needed to collect signatures against 301, I would do the same thing again today."