 On January 19 when I was at my desk working on my new novel, I took a break to scroll through the headlines on the Guardian’s web site and saw that Hrant Dink, the journalist and founding editor of AGOS, Istanbul’s bilingual Armenian newspaper, had been brutally murdered. I started calling friends and colleagues. Everyone I spoke with had the same response: shock which then moved into a deep sorrow.
Dink had been tried for and convicted of “insulting Turkishness” under Turkey’s Penal Code 301, the same law used to prosecute Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, among others. Hrant Dink’s six-month jail sentence was suspended, but his appeal of the conviction was denied. His crime? He spoke and wrote openly
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