US lawmakers have introduced a resolution condemning the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink and calling on Turkey to abolish Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), the law under which Dink was tried and handed a six-month suspended sentence for “insulting Turkishness.”

A Senate resolution was drafted by Democrat Senator Joe Biden, who heads the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, the Anatolia news agency reported. A similar resolution was introduced in the House of Representatives earlier this week.

Both resolutions condemn the murder of Dink and call for abolishment of Article 301; however, the resolution introduced in the Senate also calls on Turkey to establish full political, diplomatic and economic relations with neighboring Armenia.

Turkey refuses to establish diplomatic ties with Armenia and keeps its border with the landlocked country closed in protest of Armenia's support for Armenian diaspora efforts to win international recognition for an alleged genocide of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire and Armenia's continued occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan.

Dink, widely acclaimed as a voice of understanding between Turks and Armenians, was killed by a teenage gunman from the Black Sea province of Trabzon, who reportedly confessed he had killed Dink because he said “Turkish blood is dirty.”

“Hrant Dink was a leading voice in Turkey's Armenian community and an eloquent advocate for human rights, press freedom and democracy,” the US-Armenian group the Armenian Assembly of America quoted Bilden as saying. “His assassination was an outrage and a tragedy. Hrant's legacy deserves the Senate's respect. His murder demands our action.”

Dink, editor in chief of the bilingual Agos newspaper, was gunned down outside his office in İstanbul on Jan. 19. His murder shocked the nation and revived debates over Article 301 which critics say restricts freedom of expression in Turkey.

Source: Today's Zaman