Article 301

Osman Hayal, Yasin Hayal’s brother, will be tried for the charges of “participating in a murder” and “being a member in a terrorist organization”. Yasin Hayal is on trial as the instigator of Hrant Dink’s murder.

The court rejected the demand by Dink’s lawyers to see the report about Erhan Tuncel, who is on trial as one of the instigators of the murder. The next hearing will be on January 26, 2009.

Dink’s lawyers have objected to not being able to see the report about Erhan Tuncel’s function as an intelligence staff on the grounds that it was a “State Secret”. Witness Osman Hayal did not answer the question whether or not he was in Istanbul at the time of the murder.

Istanbul’s 14th High Criminal Court will continue hearing the witnesses in Dink’s murder case. “Hrant’s Friends” will be at Beşiktaş Square in Istanbul as before, demanding justice.

Ministry of Justice refused to give permission for the trials of Nurettin Demirtaş and Selma Irmak, former DTP party officers, under article 301. Both individuals were on trial for voicing the allegation of chemical weapons regarding the Turkish Armed Forces.

Although the Ministry of Justice stops some of the article 301 cases, it still gives many permissions for trial under this article. Writer and journalist Ahmet Altan may become the next victim for insulting the Turkish nation.

Ministry of Justice gives permission for the trial of writer Temel Demirer under article 301 for saying there was genocide of Armenians in Turkey at a meeting to protest the murder of Hrant Dink on January

Writer Murat Coşkun has been arrested for the book he wrote seven years ago. He is accused of having used expressions that provokes hostility and hatred among people.

It has been suspected all along that Ogün Smast, Hrant Dink’s killer, was not alone at the scene on the day of the murder. Now the police is considering the possibility that Osman Hayal, Yasin Hayal’s brother, may have accompanied Ogün Samast on that day.

Osman Hayal, brother of the alleged instigator in Dink’s murder, has been taken into custody, even though he had claimed before that he was not in İstanbul on the day of the murder, but in Trabzon.

According to a telephone communication revealed by the Ergenekon investigation, there were two more individuals with Ogün Samast when he killed Hrant Dink and Yasin Hayal, the instigator of the murder, was a member of the Great Union Party at the time.

Lawyers of the Dink family in Hrant Dink’s murder case insist that not only Colonel Ali Öz, Captain Metin Yıldız and four other gendarmerie officials from Trabzon Gendarmerie, but all of the officials who could not prevent te murder should be prosecuted.

Istanbul Regional Administrative Court decided there was no need to investigate Chief of Istanbul Police Department Celalettin Cerrah and his subordinates for their role in Hrant Dink’s role.

Colonel Ali Öz, the key figure in Hrant Dink’s murder case, who is accused of not taking seriously the intelligence reports about Dink’s assassination, does not remember anything.

Mehmet Ocaktan, head of the subcommittee to investigate Hrant Dink’s murder, announced that contrary to the news in the media, subcommittee’s report about the case was not completed yet.

Justice Ministry refused the trial of journalist İbrahim Tığ under article301, who had criticized government’s privatization program and called it an act of treason.

The General Staff files a complaint about journalist Abdurrahman Dilipak for denigrating the Armed Forces using article 301.

Since the accused O.S. in Dink’s murder trial will be eighteen in the next hearing, the trial will be open to the media.

Dink’s lawyer Cinmen said that if the gendarmerie officials did not even know Hrant Dink before and this murder was not their concern, then anything can happen in Trabzon.

Two more witnesses in the Gendarmerie Neglect Trial in Trabzon say that they knew the murder. One of them added that it was not their concern since it was not a terrorist act.