WE WILL BE STANDING HERE AS LONG AS WE LIVE (Statement read bt Tulin Ozen on behalf of Friends of Hrant)

10 May 2010

This case is almost 3,5 years old. We would first like to emphasize that we will be standing here as long as we live. Let the officials who protect the officials who were involved with the murder of Hrant be aware. The number of conscious people that demand justice will increase and the will of the pursuers of this case will get stronger.

They are struggling in vain. Their efforts will just delay justice. But eventually the people who feed and care the perpetrators of an assasination, who cause them to commit a murder and who try to protect the culprits will come into the light. We will see them lowering their heads.

And the things that need to be done to realize this is so simple. To conduct the investigations that were not done, to interrogate the officials that weren’t, to prosecute the ones that haven’t and to combine all the related court cases. In other words, the justice will not be delayed if the state acts like a state who claims to be one.

The most critical scenes of the footage from the security cameras from the crime scene is destroyed and hid. They can start by digging these, for instance. The internet cafe which the murderer spent time during the day of the murder is found to be a security company. They can look into the relation between them. It is crystal clear that anything related with Hrant’s murder should be investigated from scratch after the Poyrazkoy and Kafes (Cage) indictments is published. They can initiate that. They can look into who encouraged the security officers that posed with the murderer with a big smile on their faces in Samsun. Doesn’t the Hrant Dink murder case deserve an investigation by a specially assigned team of prosecutors? They can appoint prosecutors.

Isn’t it ridiculous that a state that does not do any of these call itself a state or have anything to do with justice?

Of course it is. But we don’t have the energy to laugh at it. This case, which was referred to as “the honor of the state” turned into a vodvil of shame. We noted this down and we cannot forget. Still, we call upon the state to belatedly “save its honor”.

Our patience and limits of endurance let only this much.

Friends of Hrant