The Turkish Taraf Daily's columnist, Sevan Nishanyan, who wrote a humanistic adaptation of Ataturk's "Address to Turkish Youth," a patriotic speech calling on young people to protect their country at all costs, published e-mails received from irate nationalists and filled with threats and vulgar language in his column.

In his adaptation, Nishanyan replaced the first sentence of the address, "Your first duty is to preserve and to defend Turkish Independence and the Turkish Republic forever," with "Your first duty is to be a human being." The sentences: "This is the very foundation of your existence and your future. This foundation is your most precious treasure. In the future, too, there may be malevolent people at home and abroad, who will wish to deprive you of this treasure" in the original were changed to: "The very foundation of being human is love toward other human beings. All through your life, you shall consider it a duty for yourself to teach beauty, reason and justice to people. If you have knowledge, you will share it without expecting anything in return." The rest of Nishanyan's adaptation was a treatise on the equality of all human beings.

However, the backlash from some among the Turkish youth was spine-chilling. "We will make you write the correct version of the 'Address to Youth' with your own blood. … I'll kill you like that Hrant Dink dog," said one of the messages, most of whose text was not suitable for replication, Asbarez.com reported.