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Turkey Says To Amend Law Curbing Free Speech

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  • Turkey Says To Amend Law Curbing Free Speech

    TURKEY SAYS TO AMEND LAW CURBING FREE SPEECH
    By Hidir Goktas

    San Diego Union Tribune, CA
    Reuters
    Jan 7 2008

    ANKARA - Turkey's government, under pressure from the European Union,
    will propose changes this week to a law that has been used to prosecute
    writers and is widely seen as a major obstacle to Ankara's troubled
    EU membership bid.

    Article 301 of the penal code makes it a crime to insult 'Turkishness'
    and has been used to prosecute Nobel Literature Laureate Orhan Pamuk
    and many other writers and journalists.

    Advertisement'The change in article 301 ... will be presented to
    parliament as a proposal this week,' Justice Minister Mehmet Ali
    Sahin told a news conference on Monday.

    Sahin gave no details of the proposed changes, but a justice ministry
    official told Reuters the revised article would make it a crime to
    insult 'the Turkish people' instead of the vaguer 'Turkishness'.

    Also, the justice ministry would have to give its permission in
    future for cases to be opened under article 301, the official said,
    a move that should prevent nationalist prosecutors with their own
    political agenda from exploiting the law.

    Tackling article 301 has become a litmus test of Turkey's commitment
    to reforms for the EU, which opened formal accession talks with the
    large Muslim but secular country in 2005.

    Ankara's EU negotiations have slowed to a crawl amid disputes over
    human rights and Cyprus.

    Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn has recommended that the EU not
    extend accession talks to the justice dossier until the article has
    been changed.

    NATIONALISTS

    The centre-right government of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has
    repeatedly pledged to amend article 301, but analysts say it has been
    treading warily despite its large parliamentary majority for fear of
    sparking a nationalist backlash.

    Despite the high-profile cases brought under the law, it remains
    broadly popular among the Turkish public. Defenders of article 301
    point out that few cases end with a conviction.

    Pamuk, whose own case was dropped on a legal technicality, upset
    nationalist prosecutors with his comments about the mass killings of
    ethnic Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915-16.

    Ankara denies Armenian accusations, which are backed by many Western
    historians, that the killings amounted to systematic genocide. Most
    Turks view the genocide tag as an insult to their national honour.

    Supporters of Turkey's EU bid hope amending article 301 will help put
    the accession process back on track, but Ankara faces opposition from
    French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

    Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel say Turkey is too big
    and too culturally different ever to fit in the EU and want Ankara
    to accept instead a 'privileged partnership' falling well short of
    membership, a proposal Erdogan has rejected.
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