Turkish Broadcaster TRT to Pay Reparations to Dink Family

Turkish state broadcaster TRT has been ordered to pay reparations to slain journalist Hrant Dink’s family for a documentary it broadcast that implied he was a perpetrator in a 1978 massacre in southern Turkey, reports Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review.

“Şahların Labirenti” (The Labyrinth of the Shahs) was a Turkish Radio and Television Corporation, or TRT, documentary that originally aired on December 2008 and investigated the Kahramanmaraş massacre of 1978, in which more than 100 people died in clashes between local Alevis and Sunnis.

Turkey’s infamous "deep state" was later alleged to have played a role in organizing the clashes.

Ökkeş Şendiller, who was one of the suspects in the massacre before becoming a Kahramanmaraş deputy, alleged in the documentary that Dink was one of the perpetrators of the killings. The film showed Dink’s photograph while Şendiller said Dink and the leftist organizations he founded with his friends initiated the incident.

Dink’s family opened a case against TRT, Şendiller and production company Bey Yapım, alleging Dink had been insulted.

As a result of the case concluded last week, all suspects have been ordered to pay 20,000 Turkish Liras in reparations.

“Hrant had dedicated his life to brotherhood and the friendship of people, it was unacceptable that he would be considered responsible for such a massacre,” said Dink family lawyer Fethiye Çetin. “Those allegations have caused the family so much suffering.”

The family was expected to donate the reparations to a foundation, as they have done in the past for other similar cases in which the family opened cases for insults against Dink.