Turkish government suspends police intelligence chief in Istanbul

The suspension of intelligence chief Ahmet Ilhan Guler, announced by Interior Ministry officials, the agency said, follows the Jan. 19 killing of Hrant Dink. The 52-year-old journalist had angered Turkish nationalists with repeated assertions that the mass killings of Armenians around the time of World War I was genocide.

More than 100,000 people marched at Dink's funeral, many of them chanting for Turkey to abolish a repressive article in the penal code used against many intellectuals, including Dink, who spoke openly on controversial topics.

It is a crime to insult Turkey or the Turkish national character. The Associated Press

/The International Herald Tribune/