In a country where disobedient journalists are usually prosecuted under Article 301 for “insulting the nation,” they could have simply taken him to court. His newspaper, Agos, could have been shut down. He could have been silenced with fines and verdicts.

But Hrant Dink was not tried. He was killed.

Three shots in the back — and a voice that had become too loud was silenced.

Why?

Officially, the issue concerned Article 301 and accusations of “insulting the nation.” However, many believe that this was only the surface. Kemalist circles viewed Dink as an existential threat. He spoke about memory, truth, and coexistence at a time when the system was built on silence.

According to historian Ali Kardughi, Dink climbed the “scaffold” because he became an extremely influential human rights advocate during the era of liberal reforms. He dared to say what many were afraid even to think.

But there was one story that the Turkish regime could not forgive.

Dink revealed a fact that struck at the very heart of the national myth. It concerned Sabiha Gökçen — the adopted daughter of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, a national symbol, and the first female pilot.

According to materials published by Dink, the image of national pride could in fact have been an Armenian orphan who had lost her parents during the years of mass massacres.

The symbol of state victory — the child of the Armenian people, whose destruction had been organized by the empire.

The true origins of Sabiha Gökçen had been discovered, and even her real name and surname had become known.

She was the Armenian woman Khatun Sebiljian. When the Sebiljian family was deported, Sabiha Gökçen ended up in one of the Turkish orphanages. Her sister reached Soviet Armenia, while her brother’s road of exile led him to Lebanon.

Decades later, the lost branches of the family found each other again, but secretly. In 2004, the daughter of Sabiha Gökçen’s biological sister, living in Yerevan, revealed the secret that the Turkish symbol — Atatürk’s daughter — was in fact not Sabiha Gökçen, but her aunt Khatun Sebiljian.

By the cruel irony of history, in 1938 Gökçen participated in the Dersim operations, suppressing the Kurdish uprising. The victim became a tool of the system.

Dink brought this truth into the public sphere.

And many believe that it was precisely for this truth that he paid with his life.

Three shots in the back…