An evening commemorating the 12th anniversary of Hrant Dink's death
 

12 years ago, on 19 January 2007, Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was shot in Istanbul in front of the building that housed his Agos newspaper. Even though the murderer has been convicted and condemned, the masterminds in the government machinery have yet to be held accountable. And there are reasons why. Hrant Dink always stood for reconciliation between Armenians and Turks, was relentless in making the perpetrators’ responsibility for the genocide a subject of discussion and tirelessly demanded the democratisation of today’s Turkey.

Can Dündar, former editor in chief of »Cumhuriyet«, has compiled a selection of Hrant Dink’s texts, contrasting them with transcriptions of the trial of the murderers.

We will be streaming the event live as of 8:30 P.M.

Framing the evening programme are two films, a panel discussion and a concert. The short film Swallow’s Nest (2007) by Bülent Arınlı tells of the Armenian orphanage near Istanbul, which Dink established. Focusing on an Armenian choir in Paris, the film The Choir (1996) gives an impression of life in the diaspora.

In a conversation in Studio, two of Dink's long-term associates – the lawyer of Hrant Dinks family, Fethiye Çetin and Karin Karakaşlı, an author at »Agos« – make reference to the contemporary situation in Turkey and beyond in a talk with »Spiegel« journalist Maximilian Popp.

Stepan Gantralyan and Olivia Noemi Peilert play songs of love and longing in their own mixture of Armenian poetry and suffering, accompanied by Emil Georgiev on the guitar.