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  • Turkey Debates Free Speech

    TURKEY DEBATES FREE SPEECH

    PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung)
    April 18 2008
    Austria

    ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) - "Happy is he who says: 'I am a Turk.

    The nationalist motto was coined by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the
    founder of modern Turkey. Its display in schools, hospitals and
    military barracks helps explain why Turkey is struggling to meet a
    key demand for membership in the European Union: overhaul of a law
    that bars insults to Turkish identity.

    On Friday, Parliament's justice panel began debating a government
    proposal to soften Article 301 of Turkey's penal code, which
    has been used to prosecute Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk and other
    intellectuals. Europe says the law should be abolished because it
    restricts freedom of speech; many Turks resent what they view as
    interference in their affairs.

    The governing party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is
    expected to approve the amendment of Article 301 when Parliament
    votes as early as Tuesday. But critics say the government plan is a
    halfhearted gesture, an attempt to placate staunch opponents of the
    law without alienating its supporters.

    Cengiz Aktar, an EU expert at Bahcesehir University in Istanbul, said
    he believed the expected amendment would have a "minimal" impact on
    Turkey's bid to join the European club. He also noted there were at
    least 20 other articles in Turkey's penal code that have "the same
    mentality of killing freedom of speech.

    Under Article 301, the maximum sentence for denigrating Turkish
    identity or insulting the country's institutions is three years in
    prison. The government proposal would reduce the time to two years,
    triggering a suspension for first-time offenders.

    Under the plan, the president would have to approve prosecutions under
    Article 301. Also, the article would refer to the crime of denigrating
    the "Turkish nation," a term viewed as more narrow than the vague
    "Turkishness.

    In a statement, New York-based Human Rights Watch said the law should
    be repealed.

    "The government's proposal merely tinkers with the wording of the law,
    while maintaining its most problematic features," the group said. It
    cited other legal restrictions on freedom of speech, including Turkey's
    anti-terror law and laws on crimes against the national founder.

    Ataturk designed his nationalist motto in an effort to build a strong
    Turkey from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, a network of territories
    in Europe, Africa and the Middle East that had been unified by force
    or in the name of Islam. He largely succeeded, amid war, slaughter
    and pressure from Western powers.

    Today, many Turks believe their nationhood faces the same threats that
    it did nearly a century ago. The military has etched Ataturk's slogan
    on hillsides in southeast Turkey, where it is fighting an insurgency
    by Kurdish separatists.

    Many students must intone the Turkish-language version _ "Ne mutlu
    Turkum diyene" _ before class. The slogan is inscribed below statues
    of Ataturk at universities, football stadiums and roadsides.

    The opposition Nationalist Action Party has launched a television ad
    campaign against any changes to Article 301 that includes the refrain:
    "Wake up Turkey! It is time for unity.

    Faruk Bal, deputy chairman of the Party, said the weakening of the
    law would allow Kurdish rebels to generate propaganda against the
    Turkish state with impunity.

    Supporters of Article 301 also say some European countries, including
    Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, have similar laws. Opponents,
    however, point out that Turkey enforces its version far more
    rigorously.

    Hrant Dink, an ethnic Armenian journalist who was gunned down in 2007,
    was prosecuted under Article 301 for referring to the mass killings
    of Armenians by Turks in the early 20th century as "genocide.

    Dink's alleged killer was a teenager influenced by extreme
    nationalists, and mourners attributed his death to the atmosphere
    of animosity surrounding the journalist's legal problems. Dink had
    received numerous death threats.

    Erdogan's government has been criticized for slow progress on EU-backed
    reforms, and at home his Islamic-oriented party is distracted by
    a prosecutor's efforts to ban it for allegedly violating secular
    principles crafted by Ataturk.

    Murat Belge, a leftist writer who has been prosecuted under Article
    301, suggested the Turkish state should absorb insults or criticism
    without resorting to law retaliation.

    "Somebody who overturns the basic principles of decency punishes
    himself," he said in an interview with Associated Press Television
    News. "Why take him seriously.
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