Hrant Dink Foundation Awarded Chirac Prize for Conflict Prevention

In a ceremony held at the Quai Branly Museum with the participation of French President Emmanuel Macron, the Chirac Prize for Conflict Prevention was awarded to the Hrant Dink Foundation.

Rakel Dink, the wife of slain Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, accepted the prize from the Chirac Foundation on November 23.

The award is given to “women and men committed to fighting on a daily basis, out on the field, so that tensions do not escalate into serious conflicts.”

The Hrant Dink Foundation was established in 2007 to carry out the vision of Hrant Dink who was assassinated in January of 2007 in front of Agos, his newspaper office in Istanbul. The Foundation has continued and broadened Dink’s work in Turkey for civil liberties, for the rights of minorities and for peaceful relations with neighbours, particularly Armenia.

“When we decided to establish this foundation with our friends after the tragedy that our family suffered in 2007, we had just one intention: to continue Hrant’s efforts with this institution, and try to fill the huge emptiness created in our lives with his struggle for human rights,” Dink said. “The racist mentality that made him a target and enemy, and that killed him, is not only trying to get its share of power in Turkey today, but this mentality is rising in the world too, creating new others and enemies and putting up new walls. This world has seen so much pain, isn’t it enough now? So much blood and tears have been shed, isn’t it enough?”

The non-profit Chirac Foundation was created in 2008 by former French President Jacques Chirac.  “Protecting biodiversity, dialogue between cultures, environmental protection…Answers to these challenges are multifaceted and so the Fondation Chirac takes action in a multitude of ways,” reads the Foundation’s website.  

The Chirac Foundation’s Jury had announced that its reasons for attributing the ‘Chirac Price for Conflict Prevention’ to the Hrant Dink Foundation were because, “Hrant Dink Foundation defines the development of a culture of dialogue, empathy and peace as the basis of all its activities. The Foundation approaches to cultural diversity as a richness; defends that the differences are acknowledged as a right; and fosters intercultural relations between the peoples of Armenia and Turkey. The family, instead of withdrawing into itself and bearing the feelings of animosity and revenge, established the Foundation which has become an indispensable actor in the debates on Turkey's democratisation. At a time when hundreds of thousands of refugees are passing through the territories of Turkey, Foundation's preemptive efforts to eradicate hate speech in the media through discourse analysis, media monitoring and education programmes do constitute an immediate and determined act for preventing conflicts.”

President Macron handed the Chirac Foundation’s prize to Hrant Dink’s widow Rakel Dink.