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Today's Zaman, Turkey
Sept 23 2012
Turkey has much to do to eliminate hate speech, crimes
23 September 2012 / AYDIN ALBAYRAK, ANKARA
As a reaction to the controversial film `Innocence of Muslims,' Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an has said that Islamophobia should be
recognized as a crime against humanity. But Turkey has its own work to
do against hate speech and crimes, analysts believe.
`Turkey has a terrible record [in this respect],' Orhan Kemal Cengiz,
a columnist for Today's Zaman, remarked, also adding: `Hate speech and
hate crimes are quite widespread, and not punished in Turkey.'
As in other countries, it is mainly minority groups in Turkey that are
the victims of hate speech. Being Armenian or Christian is enough to
attract insults from some nationalistic groups, while the Roma also
get their share of hate speech. And what is particularly unfortunate
is that Turkey doesn't have hate crime laws, aside from a single
provision in the penal code.
Article 216 of the current Turkish Penal Code (TCK), which
criminalizes `inciting people to hatred and enmity,' covers hate
speech rather than hate crimes, and could even be described as falling
short of criminalizing hate speech, as it is not usually used by
prosecutors in support of minority groups. As a result, in the great
majority of cases, hate crimes are handled as ordinary crimes, while
hate speech is just ignored.
Talking about the legal infrastructure in this area, `I have never
witnessed, one or two exceptions aside, that the single provision in
the penal code dealing with hate speech has been properly practiced,'
Cengiz told Sunday's Zaman, noting that those who, at some time in the
past, talked about there being Kurds in Turkey were tried for
attempting to incite hatred and enmity among people.
Yasemin Ä°nceoÄ?lu from the department of communications at Galatasaray
University also believes the picture regarding hate speech and crimes
in Turkey is relatively gloomy. `Hate speech is widespread in every
area of our daily life,' she commented to Sunday's Zaman, adding that
Kurds, Armenians and bi/transsexuals are the main targets of hate
speech in (social) media.
It's important that hatred crimes are separately dealt with in the
penal code, because although a hate crime may be directed against a
single person, the message carried by the act is directed to a whole
group, of which that single person is also a member, and therefore it
is in fact the whole group that is potentially under threat. And in
hate crimes, the penalty is usually harsher than for crimes not
motivated by this kind of prejudice, to discourage people from
committing such acts. `Should a crime be committed as part of a hate
crime, then the perpetrator should get an aggravated penalty,' Levent
Å?ensever, a spokesperson for the Platform for Hate Crimes Legislation,
told Sunday's Zaman.
Cengiz is of the same opinion. That is, he maintains that crimes
committed with a specific motive -- where a person is subjected to a
crime just because s/he is black, Armenian or Muslim -- should receive
sterner penalties. In preventing hate crimes, it is highly important
to combat hate speech in the first place. This is because, as Cengiz
noted, `hate speech always precedes hate crimes.' Hate speech is there
to pave the way by demonizing those who are insulted and allowing them
to be harmed. `If you accuse, in a general way, Christian missionaries
in Turkey of being agents of the West, claiming that they have a
hidden agenda, that's hate speech,' Cengiz argued.
The prime minister may be right in saying that insulting the sacred
values of Islam and its prophet cannot be justified as an exercise of
freedom of speech, but ErdoÄ?an's stance, which was perceived as more
concerned with combating attacks on Islam and religion in general, is
not supported by analysts.
For Cengiz, it is actually the vulnerable groups in the first place,
such as ethnic or religious minorities, who must be placed under
protection. And in hate speech, the history and culture of a given
country should be taken into account when putting legal regulations in
place. `While Europe needs mainly to focus on Islamophobia when
preparing a legal framework against hate speech, in Turkey the legal
framework should be more focused on articles protecting minority
groups, because it's them who are targeted,' Cengiz commented.
Ä°nceoÄ?lu also believes a law to be passed in Parliament should not
only cover faith but also matters such as ethnicity, skin color,
mother tongue and sexual orientation.
Western countries may not be any better than Turkey in regard to hate
crimes. But in the West, police departments must report whether a
crime could be categorized as a hate crime or not, allowing both
politicians and the public to keep track of what is going on in their
area and country. `But in Turkey, the relevant data are not collected,
nor shared with the public,' Å?ensever remarked.
Upon ErdoÄ?an's directive, the government has started to work on a bill
against blasphemous and offensive remarks. As ErdoÄ?an expressed his
hope, `Turkey could be a leading example for the rest of the world on
this.'
Sept 23 2012
Turkey has much to do to eliminate hate speech, crimes
23 September 2012 / AYDIN ALBAYRAK, ANKARA
As a reaction to the controversial film `Innocence of Muslims,' Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an has said that Islamophobia should be
recognized as a crime against humanity. But Turkey has its own work to
do against hate speech and crimes, analysts believe.
`Turkey has a terrible record [in this respect],' Orhan Kemal Cengiz,
a columnist for Today's Zaman, remarked, also adding: `Hate speech and
hate crimes are quite widespread, and not punished in Turkey.'
As in other countries, it is mainly minority groups in Turkey that are
the victims of hate speech. Being Armenian or Christian is enough to
attract insults from some nationalistic groups, while the Roma also
get their share of hate speech. And what is particularly unfortunate
is that Turkey doesn't have hate crime laws, aside from a single
provision in the penal code.
Article 216 of the current Turkish Penal Code (TCK), which
criminalizes `inciting people to hatred and enmity,' covers hate
speech rather than hate crimes, and could even be described as falling
short of criminalizing hate speech, as it is not usually used by
prosecutors in support of minority groups. As a result, in the great
majority of cases, hate crimes are handled as ordinary crimes, while
hate speech is just ignored.
Talking about the legal infrastructure in this area, `I have never
witnessed, one or two exceptions aside, that the single provision in
the penal code dealing with hate speech has been properly practiced,'
Cengiz told Sunday's Zaman, noting that those who, at some time in the
past, talked about there being Kurds in Turkey were tried for
attempting to incite hatred and enmity among people.
Yasemin Ä°nceoÄ?lu from the department of communications at Galatasaray
University also believes the picture regarding hate speech and crimes
in Turkey is relatively gloomy. `Hate speech is widespread in every
area of our daily life,' she commented to Sunday's Zaman, adding that
Kurds, Armenians and bi/transsexuals are the main targets of hate
speech in (social) media.
It's important that hatred crimes are separately dealt with in the
penal code, because although a hate crime may be directed against a
single person, the message carried by the act is directed to a whole
group, of which that single person is also a member, and therefore it
is in fact the whole group that is potentially under threat. And in
hate crimes, the penalty is usually harsher than for crimes not
motivated by this kind of prejudice, to discourage people from
committing such acts. `Should a crime be committed as part of a hate
crime, then the perpetrator should get an aggravated penalty,' Levent
Å?ensever, a spokesperson for the Platform for Hate Crimes Legislation,
told Sunday's Zaman.
Cengiz is of the same opinion. That is, he maintains that crimes
committed with a specific motive -- where a person is subjected to a
crime just because s/he is black, Armenian or Muslim -- should receive
sterner penalties. In preventing hate crimes, it is highly important
to combat hate speech in the first place. This is because, as Cengiz
noted, `hate speech always precedes hate crimes.' Hate speech is there
to pave the way by demonizing those who are insulted and allowing them
to be harmed. `If you accuse, in a general way, Christian missionaries
in Turkey of being agents of the West, claiming that they have a
hidden agenda, that's hate speech,' Cengiz argued.
The prime minister may be right in saying that insulting the sacred
values of Islam and its prophet cannot be justified as an exercise of
freedom of speech, but ErdoÄ?an's stance, which was perceived as more
concerned with combating attacks on Islam and religion in general, is
not supported by analysts.
For Cengiz, it is actually the vulnerable groups in the first place,
such as ethnic or religious minorities, who must be placed under
protection. And in hate speech, the history and culture of a given
country should be taken into account when putting legal regulations in
place. `While Europe needs mainly to focus on Islamophobia when
preparing a legal framework against hate speech, in Turkey the legal
framework should be more focused on articles protecting minority
groups, because it's them who are targeted,' Cengiz commented.
Ä°nceoÄ?lu also believes a law to be passed in Parliament should not
only cover faith but also matters such as ethnicity, skin color,
mother tongue and sexual orientation.
Western countries may not be any better than Turkey in regard to hate
crimes. But in the West, police departments must report whether a
crime could be categorized as a hate crime or not, allowing both
politicians and the public to keep track of what is going on in their
area and country. `But in Turkey, the relevant data are not collected,
nor shared with the public,' Å?ensever remarked.
Upon ErdoÄ?an's directive, the government has started to work on a bill
against blasphemous and offensive remarks. As ErdoÄ?an expressed his
hope, `Turkey could be a leading example for the rest of the world on
this.'