Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Istanbul and Ankara after Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, targeted by nationalist circles and the courts for his views on the 1915 to 1918 killings of Armenians, was shot dead outside his office on Friday.
A local official announced that three people were detained in connection with what was branded a "political assassination" as Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged to swiftly catch the perpetrators of what he called "an attack on freedom of thought."
"There are three people in custody. We are very close to solving the case. We have definitive evidence," Istanbul governor Muammer Guler told reporters, the Anatolia news agency reported.
PHOTO: AFP
The 53-year-old Dink was shot at the entrance of his newspaper's offices in the busy Sisli district, on the European side of the city, an employee of the weekly Agos newspaper said.
Close to 5,000 protesters -- many carrying red carnations and pictures of Dink with the inscription "My dear brother" in Turkish, Armenian and English -- gathered outside the Agos offices, demanding justice.
"We are all Armenians, we are all Hrant Dink," the protesters chanted.
In Ankara, approximately 700 people -- mainly trade unionists and human rights activists -- held a peaceful sit-in in central Kizilay square, Anatolia reported.
The NTV news channel said Dink died instantly after being shot in the head and the neck.
Police were looking for a man in his late teens, wearing a denim jacket and a white cap, NTV said, while Anatolia reported that witnesses saw a man in his late twenties running from the scene.
Dink's lawyer, Erdal Dogan, told the CNN-Turk news channel that his client had been receiving threats, but had not requested police protection.
In his latest column, Dink wrote of a "considerable group of people who see me as an enemy of the Turks," saying he had received letters "full of anger and menace."
The spiritual leader of Turkey's 80,000 Armenians, Patriarch Mesrob II, proclaimed a 15-day period of mourning for Dink.
Erdogan strongly condemned what he termed a "heinous murder" and said he had told his justice and interior ministers to investigate the killing and sent them to Istanbul.
"I stress that the attack on Dink is an attack on us all -- on our unity, our integrity, our peace and stability," Erdogan said. "This is an attack against freedom of thought and our democratic way of life."
Justice Minister Cemil Cicek pledged to expend every means to throw light on the murder, underlining that the investigation would be pursued "in secrecy for a while" in order to properly collect all the evidence and catch suspects.
The US, the EU and Armenia also condemned the murder, which Dink's colleagues and friends said was politically motivated.
"This is clearly a political murder. It is a planned and premeditated killing," said Derya Sazak, a columnist for the daily Milliyet.
French President Jacques Chirac sent a letter to Dink's widow declaring: "I can't express strongly enough how I condemn this abominable act, which deprives Turkey of one of its most courageous and free voices."
Dink drew the wrath of the judiciary and Turkish nationalists with his remarks on the World War I killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire, which preceded the Turkish republic.
But he always insisted that he was a citizen of Turkey and would never work against his country.
In July, the appeals court upheld a suspended six-month sentence against him for an article he wrote on the collective memory of the massacres.
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