A Hrant Dink remembrance event, which was devoted to the 11th anniversary of the assassination of this Istanbul Armenian journalist, was held in Cologne, Germany.

The commemoration brought together well-known intellectuals and politicians from Turkey and Germany, according to Agos Armenian weekly of Istanbul, Turkey.

In his remarks at the event, German Turk Cem Özdemir, who co-chairs of the left-wing Alliance 90/The Greens party of Germany, stated that Dink was killed by the Turkish state. 

“With Dink’s murder, time went backwards in Turkey,” Özdemir said, in particular. “Even the press isn’t free now in Turkey.”

Renowned Turkish human rights activist Ragıp Zarakolu, for his part, noted that the planners of Dink’s murder had not taken into account that the murder would cause a burst of conscience among Turkish society.

“In this sense, Hrant Dink has saved a lot in Turkey with his death,” Zarakolu added.

Hrant Dink, the founder and chief editor of Agos, was gunned down on January 19, 2007, outside the then office of this newspaper.

In 2011, the perpetrator, Ogün Samast, was sentenced by a juvenile court to 22 years and ten months for the murder.

After long court proceedings and appeals, however, a new probe was ultimately launched into this murder case, and regarding numerous former and serving senior Turkish officials’ complicity in this assassination.