HUMAN RIGHTS

20,000 March in Turkey

To remember journalist slain five years ago.

At least 20,000 people demonstrated Thursday in Istanbul to remember slain journalist Hrant Dink, who was killed five years ago. Dink was shot dead outside the Istanbul offices of the Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos, after he described the mass killing of Armenians in 1922 as genocide. Dink’s killer, Ogün Samast, has been sentenced to 22 years in jail. On Tuesday, a Turkish judge sentenced another man to life in prison for incitement to murder Dink, and two others were given 12 years. But these three men, as well as 16 other defendants, have been found not guilty of being members of a criminal organization, although many believe Dink was a victim of “organized crime.” While the Turkish prosecutor has vowed to appeal the ruling, Turkish President Abdullah Gül called it “just.”