Dinks Case Would Continue in ECHR

Dink had brought the case where he was condemned to "insulting Turkishness" with reference to the preposterous article 301 of the Penal Code.

His lawyer Erdal Dogan noted that the appeal has been registered at the ECHR on January 15.

"I couldn't bear this"

Despite opposing expert testimony, the Supreme Court of Appeal had found Dink guilty of the alleged crime and he had decided to appeal to the ECHR.

Dink explains this process in his column at Agos newspaper on January 19, the day he was gunned down in front of the newspaper's offices in Istanbul.

"(...) Now the verdict was there and all my hopes were lost. From that time on, I was in the most embarrassing situation a man can experience. The judge gave the decision in the name of "Turkish people" and legally registered that I had "insulted Turkish identity".

I could bear everything but not this. In my view, to humiliate people who we live together on the basis of an ethnic or religious difference is called racism and this is something unforgivable. Just under the influence of such a psychology, I told to the members of the press who were waiting for me at the door to check "whether I would leave the country or not" the following statement:

"I will consult my lawyers. I will go to the Court of Appeal for cassation and if necessary I will also apply to European Court of Human Rights. If I am not acquitted at any stage, then I will leave my country. Because in my understanding a person sentenced to punishment with such an accusation does not have the right to live with other citizens whom he has humiliated."(TK/EÜ)