Yesterday Sevan Nishanyan, Turkish Taraf Daily’s columnist published e-mails with threats he got from Turkish nationalists, “filled with vulgar language”, Asbarez daily reports.

The letters were sent in response to his adaptation of Ataturk’s “Address to Turkish Youth.” “Nishanyan replaced the first sentence of the address, ‘Your first duty is to preserve and to defend Turkish Independence and the Turkish Republic forever,’ with ‘Your first duty is to be a human being’,” the daily reads.

Asbarez daily published the sentences that were also changed. Thus, the sentences: “This is the very foundation of your existence and your future. This foundation is your most precious treasure. In the future, too, there may be malevolent people at home and abroad, who will wish to deprive you of this treasure” were reworded as: “The very foundation of being human is love toward other human beings. All through your life, you shall consider it a duty for yourself to teach beauty, reason and justice to people. If you have knowledge, you will share it without expecting anything in return.”

Here are the excerpts from the letter received by Nishanyan, “We will make you write the correct version of the ‘Address to Youth’ with your own blood. … I’ll kill you like that Hrant Dink dog.”