Thousands of people gathered in Istanbul Thursday to pay tribute to ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink and to protest a court ruling that his murder was not planned as part of a wider conspiracy. "Murderer state will account for this," and "Shoulder to shoulder against fascism," chanted the crowd near the central Taksim Square before marching to the offices of Dink's newspaper for a silent vigil on the fifth anniversary of his murder.
Television reports said around 20,000 people joined the demonstration. A leading member of Turkey's tiny Armenian community, Dink, 52, was shot dead in broad daylight on January 19, 2007, outside the offices of his bilingual weekly newspaper Agos. Dink had campaigned for reconciliation between Turks and Armenians and his assassination sent shockwaves through Turkey, growing into a wider scandal following reports that state security forces had known of a plot to kill him but failed to act.