Hrant Dink Foundation awarded Chirac Prize in France

Hrant Dink Foundation awarded Chirac Prize in France

PanARMENIAN.Net - Hrant Dink Foundation was awarded the Chirac Prize For Conflict Prevention by the Chirac Foundation.

The Hrant Dink Foundation was created after the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist and activist, the editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos Hrant Dink.

On the ninth year of the prize, the awardees were announced following the meeting of the Chirac Foundation’s Jury in late September. The Chirac Foundation also presented its Culture for Peace Prize to Zoukak theater company, which has been contributing, through theater, to the rehabilitation efforts of refugees living in Lebanon camps.

Chirac Foundation was established in 2008 by the former President of the French Republic, Jacques Chirac, with the mission to ‘support efforts for prevention of conflicts, dialogue between cultures and increasing quality of access to health services’.

During the prize ceremony, which was attended by the Jury members and selection committee as well as the international media and leading opinion makers that pursue rights-based advocacy, President of Hrant Dink Foundation, Rakel Dink, received the prize from the President of French Republic Emmanuel Macron.

"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 in hwe speech.

"As an Armenian who knows what it means to be displaced, it gives me great pain to see millions of refugees being uprooted and dispersed in the world today. And watching the response of the states to this situation is particularly striking… Unfortunately hate speech is rising all around the world and pushing people into further withdrawing into their own religious or ethnic communities.

"The goal of our Foundation is to fight against discrimination, starting from our own home Turkey, create a language of dialogue and peace, bring different identities closer, protect cultural heritage, improve Turkey-EU relations, open borders in an era when walls are being erected, contribute to the development of Turkey-Armenia relations and most important of all, to overcome the borders in people’s minds. "

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