Hrant Dink

Hrant Dink was born in Malatya on 15 September 1954, the eldest of three sons to Sarkis Dink (known as Haşim Kalfa), a tailor from Gürün, Sivas, and Gülvart Dink, from Kangal, Sivas. His father's gambling debts led to the family's move to Istanbul in 1960, where they sought a new beginning. Sarkis Dink's gambling continued in İstanbul, however, and one year after their move, Dink's parents separated, leaving the seven-year-old Dink and his brothers without a place to live. Dink's grandmother enrolled the boys at the Gedikpaşa Armenian Orphanage; Dink often noted his grandfather, who spoke seven languages and read constantly, as the role model and father figure who inspired his love of letters.

The Gedikpaşa Armenian Orphanage, an institution run by the Armenian Evangelical Community, was to be home to Hrant Dink for the next ten years. The orphanage children spent their summers at the Tuzla Armenian Children's Camp, on the Marmara beachfront in a suburb of İstanbul, building and improving the summer camp during their stay. The Tuzla Armenian Children's Camp played a significant role in Hrant Dink's life, both personally, as he met his future wife as a child and later married her at the camp, and professionally, as the government-led closing of the Camp in 1984 was one of the factors that raised Dink's awareness of the issues of the Armenian community and eventually led to his becoming an activist.

Dink received his primary education at the Hay Avedaranagan İncirdibi Protestant Armenian Primary School and Bezciyan School and his secondary education at the Üsküdar Surp Haç Armenian High School, working as a tutor at the same time.

During his senior year, he was expelled from the Üsküdar Surp Haç, and completed his high school degree at the Şişli Public High School. Hrant Dink continued his education at Istanbul University, where he studied zoology and became a sympathizer of TİKKO, the armed faction of the Maoist TKP-ML. Around this time, in 1972, he legally changed his name (to Fırat Dink), along with two Armenian friends, Armanek and İstepan, to disassociate their factional activities from the Armenian community. His friend Armanek Bakırcıyan, who changed his name to Orhan Bakır, later rose in TİKKO to membership of the central committee, took part in armed struggle in Eastern Turkey and was killed during fighting in 1978. Having fallen in love, Hrant Dink parted ways with his friends and remained at the sympathizer level, completing his bachelor's degree in zoology and enrolling in the Philosophy Department for a second bachelor's degree, which he did not complete.

Religious beliefs

Dink was baptized and married within the Armenian Apostolic Church, but was educated and sheltered at Armenian Protestant institutions and received his introduction to religion within the Protestant sphere. Dink was a member of the Armenian Evangelical Church of Gedikpaşa, Istanbul, as well as a member by birth in the Armenian Apostolic Church. He regarded both churches as part of his culture and said that he was not someone who dealt heavily with religious rituals. Keeping the duality to the end, his funeral service was held in the Apostolic Church, by Patriarch Mutafyan, with Protestant ministers delivering eulogies at the burial.

Tuzla Armenian Children's Camp

Dink, together with his wife Rakel, took over the management of the Tuzla Armenian Children's Camp at the time of Güzelyan's arrest, while continuing in the bookstore business with his brothers. In 1979, the General Directorate of Foundations started a court action to annul Gedikpaşa Armenian Protestant Church's ownership of the camp, based on a 1974 ruling by the Court of Appeals that made it impossible for minority foundations to own real estate beyond what they possessed in 1936. After a five-year legal battle, the court ruled that the land should be returned to its previous owner and in 1984 the camp was closed down. The closure of the camp, where over 22 years around 1,500 children stayed affected Dink deeply and over the years he wrote about the camp often: "I went to Tuzla when I was 8. I poured my labour in there for 20 years. I met my wife Rakel there. We grew up together. We were married in the camp. Our children were born there... After the September 12 coup, our camp manager was arrested on the claim that he was raising Armenian militants. A wrongful claim. None of us was brought up to be a militant. My friends and I, each of us old charges of the camp, rushed to fill the job to save the camp and the orphanage from shutting down. But then, one day they handed us a paper from a court... 'We just found out that your minority institutions don't have a right to buy real estate. We never should have given you that permission way back then. This place will now revert to its old owner.' We fought for five years and we lost... Little chance we had with the state as the contester. Hear my plea, brothers, sisters!.."

The Tuzla Armenian Children's Camp was the subject of an exhibit by the Turkish Human Rights Organization in 1996, the materials from which was published in book form in 2000, with a foreword by Orhan Pamuk and an afterword by Hrant Dink. In 2001 the camp grounds were sold to a local businessman who intended to build a house on the site until Dink contacted him and let him know that the land had belonged to an orphanage. The businessman offered to donate the land back, but the law at the time did not permit it. At the time of Dink's death in 2007, the camp grounds continued to stand empty, awaiting the new Foundation law that was passed at the end of 2006 but was vetoed and returned to parliament by President Sezer.

Trial

The Dink murder trial opened in Istanbul on 2 July 2007. Eighteen people were charged at Istanbul Heavy Penal Court No 14 in connection with the journalist's assassination. Since the main suspect, Ogün Samast was younger than 18, the hearing was not public. Reportedly, the defendants Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel repeated their testimonies given to the security forces and prosecutor. The court decided to release the defendants Osman Altay, Irfan Özkan, Salih Hacisalihoglu and Veysel Toprak to be tried without remand and adjourned the hearing to 1 October.

On 25 July 2011, Samast was convicted of premeditated murder and illegal possession of a firearm by Istanbul's Heavy Juvenile Criminal Court. He was sentenced to 22 years and 10 months in prison, and could be eligible for parole in 2021, after serving two thirds of his sentence. Another suspect, Yasin Hayal, was convicted of ordering the murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

In July 2014, the Turkish Supreme Court ruled that the investigation into the killing had been flawed, thus paving the way for trials of police officials and other public authorities. In the pursuit of this case hearings were held, and in January 2017 Ali Fuat Yılmazer, the former head of Turkey's police intelligence branch, gave testimony that the killing was "deliberately not prevented" and security authorities in Istanbul and Trabzon were responsible.

The trials, based on two indictments dated 2015 and 2017 charging a total of 78 defendants, lingered on for several years. The 14th Heavy Penal Court in Istanbul finally issued its verdict during the 130th hearing on 26 March 2021. Former police chiefs Yılmazer and Ramazan Akyürek were issued life sentences for premeditated murder. 26 defendants were sentenced to jail for various periods, while others were either acquitted or their judicial cases were separated from the murder trial. An appeals court upheld most of the rulings on 5 May 2022, as 11 defendants were still in prison as part of the judicial process.

The family of Dink released a statement on 26 March 2021, announcing that the verdicts "could be able to convince neither themselves nor the public," while their lawyer stressed that several public officials who took part in the murder were not even put on trial.

After serving 16 years and 10 months of his prison sentence of 22 years and 10 months, Samast was released on parole "for good behaviour" on 15 November 2023.

On the 6th of December, an Istanbul court imposed an international travel ban on Samast. The next week, on December 13, Samast applied for a name change, saying "At a young age, I got involved in a grave incident. As a result, I face difficulties within society. I cannot find peace; I want to be forgotten". His proposed name was widely circulated in the Turkish press.