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FOUR TURKISH JOURNALISTS ESCAPE TRIAL, ONE STILL RISKS JAIL
Agence France Presse -- English
April 11, 2006 Tuesday 1:14 PM GMT
A Turkish court Tuesday dropped charges against four prominent
journalists, but will continue to try a fifth in a high-profile freedom
of speech case linked to debate over the massacres of Armenians under
the Ottoman Empire.
The five were indicted in December for criticizing a court decision
that briefly blocked a landmark conference in Istanbul on the World
War I massacres, a long-standing taboo that Turks have only recently
began to debate.
The prosecution charged them under articles that penalize insults to
the judiciary and attempts to influence the justice and carry up to
10 years in prison.
The European Union, which Turkey is seeking to join, has repeatedly
warned Ankara to stop prosecuting intellectuals for exercising their
right to free speech.
"The court dropped the charges against me and my colleagues Hasan
Cemal, Ismet Berkan and Erol Katircioglu, citing the statute of
limitations," Haluk Sahin, a columnist for the liberal daily Radikal,
told AFP by telephone.
"The judge decided to continue trying Murat Belge because his articles
were published later and do not fall under the scope of the statute
of limitations," he added.
Like Sahin, Katircioglu and Belge are columnists for Radikal, while
Berkan is also the newspaper's editor-in-chief.
Cemal is a senior editorialist for the mass-selling Milliyet.
A landmark conference contesting Ankara's official line on the mass
killings of Armenians was blocked in September when a court, petitioned
by a group of nationalists, ordered the suspension of the event.
The event, already postponed once earlier in 2005, was finally
held with a one-day delay after the organizers changed the venue to
circumvent the court order.
The ruling came under widespread criticism, including harsh words by
the EU and even the Turkish government, which backed the holding of
the conference in a bid to prove its tolerance of dissenting views.
Armenians claim up to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered in
orchestrated killings between 1915 and 1917 and wage a campaign for
an international recognition of the massacres as genocide.
Turkey categorically rejects genocide allegations and argues that
300,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife
when the Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia
and sided with Russian troops invading the crumbling Ottoman Empire.
Agence France Presse -- English
April 11, 2006 Tuesday 1:14 PM GMT
A Turkish court Tuesday dropped charges against four prominent
journalists, but will continue to try a fifth in a high-profile freedom
of speech case linked to debate over the massacres of Armenians under
the Ottoman Empire.
The five were indicted in December for criticizing a court decision
that briefly blocked a landmark conference in Istanbul on the World
War I massacres, a long-standing taboo that Turks have only recently
began to debate.
The prosecution charged them under articles that penalize insults to
the judiciary and attempts to influence the justice and carry up to
10 years in prison.
The European Union, which Turkey is seeking to join, has repeatedly
warned Ankara to stop prosecuting intellectuals for exercising their
right to free speech.
"The court dropped the charges against me and my colleagues Hasan
Cemal, Ismet Berkan and Erol Katircioglu, citing the statute of
limitations," Haluk Sahin, a columnist for the liberal daily Radikal,
told AFP by telephone.
"The judge decided to continue trying Murat Belge because his articles
were published later and do not fall under the scope of the statute
of limitations," he added.
Like Sahin, Katircioglu and Belge are columnists for Radikal, while
Berkan is also the newspaper's editor-in-chief.
Cemal is a senior editorialist for the mass-selling Milliyet.
A landmark conference contesting Ankara's official line on the mass
killings of Armenians was blocked in September when a court, petitioned
by a group of nationalists, ordered the suspension of the event.
The event, already postponed once earlier in 2005, was finally
held with a one-day delay after the organizers changed the venue to
circumvent the court order.
The ruling came under widespread criticism, including harsh words by
the EU and even the Turkish government, which backed the holding of
the conference in a bid to prove its tolerance of dissenting views.
Armenians claim up to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered in
orchestrated killings between 1915 and 1917 and wage a campaign for
an international recognition of the massacres as genocide.
Turkey categorically rejects genocide allegations and argues that
300,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife
when the Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia
and sided with Russian troops invading the crumbling Ottoman Empire.