ISTANBUL (Hurriyet Daily News)—The son of slain Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink responded to a letter written by arrested journalist Ahmet Şık after his detainment, calling him a source of hope and slamming the state and judiciary as “biased.”
“We never made our enemies through the state, and neither will we test our friends through it,” Arat Dink wrote, daily Radikal reported Thursday.
In a letter he wrote to Dink from prison Tuesday, Şık appealed to the slain journalist’s son: “My brother Arat, will you hug me as if you were hugging your father when we meet once again, given that I am apparently a member of the racist, fascist mentality that killed your father?”
Şık, who has long been seen as an opponent of coups, was arrested Sunday in connection to the alleged Ergenekon plot to overthrow the government.
“We recognize both our enemies and friends through our human point of view, our wording, our flesh,” Dink wrote in reply to Şık, adding that it was not the first time his beloved friends had been slandered.
Dink also said the Turkish state and its powers were “biased,” as was the independence of the judiciary and the state’s wiretapping.
“Their presumption of innocence is also biased. Everything of theirs is biased,” Dink wrote. “A policeman mentions assassination plans on the phone, they say it is necessary to exert his job. A journalist tries to report some news, they say he is a [terrorist] organization member.”
Dink told Şık he had been a source of hope, with his “words, actions and [sincere] endeavors.”
Şık wrote letters Tuesday to his wife and daughter and to journalist colleagues. In addition to Dink, he also appealed in a letter to Fadime Göktepe, the mother of daily Evrensel reporter Metin Göktepe, who was beaten to death by police in 1996.
“Will you call me your ‘second Metin’ when you see me once more given that I am apparently on the side of those who murdered my friend by torturing him [as the state authorities claim]?” he wrote.
Göktepe also replied to Şık on Wednesday, saying he was still her “son, [her second] Metin.”
“You have always been on my side… I would have liked to come near you. I keep praying for you,” she said in her letter.
Şık also appealed to Emine Ocak, mother of Hasan Ocak, whose dead body was found in the cemetery of unknown people after he was taken into custody by police in 1995.
“I have been crying since the day they arrested you, saying to myself, ‘They had taken my son [Ahmet Şık] like they took Hasan,” Ocak wrote in reply. “I am crying again, I want them to give you back to me. Once you come back, I will hug you in a way that I will never give you to anyone again.”
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