Editorial: They all have dirt on their hands
We had already seen how the ruling party wanted to lay the entire blame of the Hrant Dink murder on the Gülen movement when deceptive and manipulative reports were published in certain newspapers close to the government. In July, in response to these reports, we wrote, “Those who use the Dink case as a vehicle in their strategy of war are serving to keep certain perpetrators of this crime in the shadows, and in essence, extending their complicity in the crime”.
The most recent statement given by Ogün Samast, the gunman of the murder, and the manner in which the aforementioned newspapers have embraced this statement, clearly show that the same strategy is being perpetuated in a deeper and more comprehensive manner. In this most recent statement that has immediately made headlines, Samast gives the names of police chiefs known to the public as members of the Gülen movement. This game, based on revealing only one aspect of the truth, proves nothing but the fact that those who have set up this game have dirt on their hands.
Today, we are passing through a new period of conflict and polarization following the end of the 10-year partnership between the AK Party government and the Gülen Movement. This is a war in which both sides have shown they will resort to any means possible to weaken each other. It appears that, in this atmosphere of spite and ill-will, the Hrant Dink murder is seen by the ruling party as a weapon that can be used against the Gülen movement. This is an ugly plan in which one of the country’s greatest tests of justice is being instrumentalized.
Yes, it is true that the police chiefs allegedly in relation with the Gülen Movement, and mentioned in the gunman’s statement, carry certain culpability in the assassination of Hrant Dink. But was it only them? State institutions, and the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and the General Staff first and foremost among them, and the Police, Army, Judiciary, Bureaucracy and the political power to which all these institutions are tied to, have all played a role first in Dink being singled out as a target, then in his assassination, and finally in the cover-up that has protected the perpetrators to this day. This glaring truth was also declared by the European Court of Human Rights which found that Turkey had failed to properly investigate the role of state officials in the Hrant Dink murder, and by the Constitutional Court that ruled the murder was not probed efficiently, which in its decision made reference to the ECHR verdict.
This is why the only thing that needs to be done today, as it was yesterday, is to shed light on all aspects of the Hrant Dink murder, and bring all those responsible to justice. As long as this is not done, we will not be fooled by merely a single aspect of the truth being packaged as part of a certain script and presented to us as conclusive.
This ugly game will not only fail to provide justice, but it also means that the culpability of the ruling power in this murder, carried out on the basis of a consensus, will grow even more. And we know very well that only when this culpability receives an appropriate sentence that Turkey will truly become ‘New Turkey’.
