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ANKARA: Oran: 'Soon Lawyers Will Be In Article 288's Crosshairs'

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  • ANKARA: Oran: 'Soon Lawyers Will Be In Article 288's Crosshairs'

    ORAN: 'SOON LAWYERS WILL BE IN ARTICLE 288'S CROSSHAIRS'

    New Anatolian, Turkey
    June 1 2006

    Professor Baskin Oran, the author of disputed report on minorities
    now facing allegations of trying to interfere with the judiciary,
    warned yesterday that lawyers would soon face similar legal challenges
    on the same legal grounds targeting him.

    According to Oran, Article 288 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), which
    he called "tragicomic," was being used almost every day by the public
    prosecutors to start dozens of cases against people.

    "Such an attitude has just one aim: to intimidate people," he added,
    explaining how the prosecutor started the probe against him. "I'm
    afraid the public prosecutors will soon start charging defense lawyers
    too, because they're also trying to affect judges with their defenses."

    "In February a story appeared in a newspaper (Radikal) quoting my
    defense, with the headline 'The real separatist is the prosecutor',"
    he explained. "In the story, some parts of my defense were quoted. So
    the public prosecutor is now charging me with trying to interfere
    with the judiciary. But this is tragicomic, because I was cleared of
    those charges a while ago."

    According to Oran, there is a dangerous rash of investigations by
    public prosecutors, and he cited the case of Armenian daily Agos
    Editor in Chief Hrant Dink.

    "Those charges are mostly based on Article 288," he claimed. "The
    same thing also happened to Dink. You know he faced the same kind
    of charges. In one of his columns in Agos, he used parts of his own
    defense, and that led the prosecutors to file further charges against
    him. This is ridiculous."
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