Accused editor sees good side in the law against ‘insulting Turkishn

Accused editor sees good side in the law against ‘insulting Turkishness’
By Ian Fisher The New York Times

International Herald Tribune, France
Oct 6 2006

Published: October 5, 2006

ISTANBUL Not a week after a court dropped the case against a
best-selling Turkish novelist, another well-known writer was charged
with the same crime, one of the most ambiguous and contentious here,
that of "insulting Turkishess."

The newly accused Hrant Dink, editor of an Armenian newspaper, Agos,
takes the charges – both those against him and against scores of
other writers and publishers – as positive news.

"It is something good for Turkey," said Dink, though he faces the
prospect of three years in prison. "It is good for the dynamism.

There is a strong movement from inside. And I can say, for the first
time, we are seeing a real democratic movement."

This has not been the usual interpretation, since the law was passed
last year, at a time when the riot police guarded trials and the
European Union issued dire warnings that the law, called Article 301,
stood as a major block to Turkey’s long ambitions for membership.

But some of the accused say that the turmoil is forcing a national
debate about what it truly means to be a democracy – and that, they
say, is pushing democracy forward, even if painfully.

"A lot of people were saying, ‘Wait a minute, this needs to be changed,
and we are so embarrassed about what is going on,’" said Elif Shafak,
a novelist who went on trial in September for portraying a character
who referred to a "genocide" against Armenians in her novel, called
in English "The Bastard of Istanbul."

In her case the charges were quickly dropped.

[A fuller court ruling issued Thursday defended her broadly and called
for changes in the law, Reuters reported.

[A judge wrote, "It is unthinkable to talk about crimes committed
by fictional characters" and added, "It is necessary to define the
boundaries of the ‘Turkishness’ concept and place it on firm ground."]

But it is not certain that the government will try to undo the law,
which, in theory, was meant as a progressive substitute for older and
entrenched restrictions on some free speech here – especially as it
related to criticism of the government and discussion of sensitive
topics, like the Kurdish rebellion or using the word "genocide" to
describe the mass killing and relocation of Armenians in World War I.

The intent was to make Turkey’s laws conform with its goal to join
the European Union.

But nationalist groups opposed to joining the EU have taken advantage
of the language to bring court cases against about 60 writers and
publishers, including well-known novelists like Orhan Pamuk and
Elif Shafak.

The Turkish publisher of Noam Chomsky, the maverick American scholar,
has also faced prosecution. The government itself has not initiated
such cases.

At a time when skepticism to Turkey’s membership is high both in
Europe and in Turkey, the cases seemed to question the nation’s
commitment to democratic ideals – and as each case is dismissed,
the nationalist group, the Turkish Union of Lawyers, files another,
in what critics say is an attempt to derail EU membership.

European officials have repeatedly warned Turkey about the law.

But people like Dink and Shafak argue that the legal challenges may
be backfiring, under the glare not only of Europe but among Turks
themselves, so that, in their view, a law used to stifle debate may
be encouraging it.

Judges have not hesitated to throw out cases they deem without merit.

While there have been convictions under Article 301, no one has
actually gone to prison. And the very government that drafted the
law now says it needs to be changed, although it is not clear exactly
how or when.

During Shafak’s case, she received phone calls from two of the most
powerful people in Turkey: Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who himself
had been jailed briefly years ago under the old version of the law,
and his foreign minister, Abdullah Gul.

Her interpretation is that nationalist groups are filing an
unprecedented number of cases under Article 301 "not because nothing
has been changing here in Turkey but because things are changing. And
things are changing in a positive direction."

"We are learning in a way – how shall I say it? – to live in more
harmony with difference, be it ethnic difference, religious difference,
sexual difference," she added.

"At the beginning of the republic, the main idea as that we were
all Turks, period, that we were a mass of undifferentiated humans,"
she said. "That kind of argument does not hold water any more."

The nationalist lawyers’ group that has brought the cases says it
will continue to do so, to uphold what they say were the principles
of the republic’s founder, Kemal Ataturk, which put the strength of
a fragile state before the claims of individuals and groups.

"Freedom of expression is different from insult and denigration,
and has limits in the world," said Kemal Kerincsiz, a leader of the
lawyers’ group. "Our system has to protect itself at the verge of
insults against the state and the Turkish identity."

Some critics question the actual commitment of Erdogan to changing
Article 301, saying that he is not eager to hurt himself politically
by shutting out the nationalists. In fact, they add, he himself has
filed suits claiming he was defamed.

But his top adviser on foreign policy, Egemen Bagis, said the march
toward free speech, and a likely change of the law, will not be
stopped.

"The dark days of Turkey were when they collected and destroyed the
books of Kafka and Dostoyevsky," he said. "I’m not saying everything
is perfect now. We’re on the track to that perfection."