By Tuba Çandar

Samatya is one those neighbourhoods of Istanbul inhabited by Armenians that has witnessed a series of atrocities throughout the last month. The bilingual (Armenian and Turkish) weekly journal Agos pioneered the media in bringing the aggressive acts against Armenians in Samatya to the public attention.

Agos was founded in 1996 by Hrant Dink, the journalist that has been the ardent defender of Armenian minority rights and stood against the discriminatory policies of the Turkish state. Following his brutal assassination on 19 January 2007, Agos remained true to his intellectual legacy and editorial tradition, in continuing  to bring the problems of the intimidated Armenian community to the public's attention.

As the acts of aggression  against aged Armenian women perpetuated, liberal-democratic daily newspapers such as Taraf and Radikal, started to give wide coverage to the Samatya events, following the example of Agos.

In particular,on January 22, when the elderly Armenian Sultan Aykar, was attacked at her ground floor apartment and another anonymous old Armenian lady was subjected to an attempted kidnapping, the Samatya events finally captured the attention of the mainstream media, as when the daily Milliyet  focused on the developments in depth and gave equally wide coverage. While the atrocities in Samatya are presented to the public knowledge through full page interviews conducted with the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, the commentators carried the issue to the op-ed columns.

First in the chain of aggressive acts committed against the Armenian inhabitants of Samatya was the beating onthe street of an Armenian lady, aged 87, in the beginning of December 2012. Following that, on December 28, Maritsa Küçük, an Armenian old lady was brutally murdered. The victims have something in common - they are people of very modest incomes.

This fact strengthens the probabilility, as opposed to the original thesis, that the crimes perpetrated have nothing to do with the intention of robbery. One other common aspect is that all the women involved were regular church-goers and the aggressive acts were committed when they were returning home from the neighborhood church.  All the victims provided certain evidence that they were followed by their aggressors. Devouring real estate which has been initially and allegedly put forward as the main reason behind the aggressive acts in Samatya proved to be far from convincing.

As the atrocities found wide coverage in the main stream media, the statement of the Governor of Istanbul, who interpreted the events as “individual” acts, were similarly considered as unconvincing. Those who recall the first official statements on the assassination of Hrant Dink, who was murdered six years ago also on a January day  on the pavement in front his newspaper Agos, will not be satisfied with such an interpretation. Those official statements had claimed that the murder of Hrant Dink was not a case of organized crime, but an “individual act”, committed with no political connection whatsoever.

As a matter of fact, we witnessed the mobilization of civil society  in the last couple of days. In two separate demonstrations, thousands of people marched with slogans reflecting the awareness of the society against those perpetrating crimes against the Armenians. The slogans read, “Do not touch my Armenian neighbour”, “I won't let my sister and brother to be touched”, “We are one with the Armenian people”, No passage to racism”.

Because we do not have sufficient information yet, I do not want to speculate on who is carrying out these aggressive acts  and why now. These events need a serious and thorough inquiry.

I have always said and keep on saying the following: The day Hrant fell on the pavement of his newspaper in daylight, before the eyes of us all, with his dead body, he formed a bridge linking 1915 with the present day. From that moment on, he kept telling us more than he did while he was alive. Those who wanted to silence him and deprived him of justice cannot prevent his voice to resonate even more strongly and higher. The media is no longer like its former self.  Neither is  civil society, or the Armenian community   like its former intimidated self!

Let me conclude by a tweet of an Armenian citizen circulated on the social media: “Let it be known that we opened our eyes in Samatya and will close them in Samatya. Nobody will be able to send us from there!”

Born in 1948, Tuba Candar completed her education in the United States after secondary schooling in Austria High School in Turkey. She graduated from the International Relations Department of the Ankara University Faculty of Political Science. She lived in Germany following March 12 military coup. Returning to Turkey, she became the editor-in-chief of “Bizim Almanca” magazine under Cumhuriyet daily. She also worked as an editor at “Gergedan” magazine. At Yeni Yüzyıl daily, she wrote culture and arts and travel pieces. She had a “Portraits” column in “Gazete Pazar.” Her first book about the life of Mualla Eyubığlu Anhegger, “Hitit Güneşi” (Hitite Sun), was in 2003. In 2007, she had “Murat Belge Bir Hayat” (Murat Belge A Life). Her latest book, “Hrant” came out on the birthday of Hrant Dink on Sept. 15 in 2010.