New York Times, NY
Oct 6 2006

Turkish Writers Say Efforts to Stifle Speech May Backfire

Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

Hrant Dink, a newspaper editor in Turkey, has been charged with
"insulting Turkishness" but is pleased with the debate cases like his
have stirred.

By IAN FISHER
Published: October 6, 2006
ISTANBUL, Sept. 30 – 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 Turkishness."

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

"It is something good for Turkey," said Mr. Dink, though he faces the
prospect of three years in jail. "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 riot policemen guarded trials and the
European Union issued dire warnings that the law, called Article 301,
stood as a major obstacle 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 new
novel, "The Bastard of Istanbul." In her case the charges were
quickly dropped.

[A fuller court ruling issued on 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 delicate
topics, like the Kurdish rebellion or using the word genocide to
describe the mass killing and relocation of Armenians in World War I.

[Another writer, Ipek Calister, went on trial on Thursday on charges
of insulting Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, modern Turkey’s founder, in a
biography of Ataturk’s wife.]

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

But nationalist groups opposed to joining the European Union have
taken advantage of the law’s language to bring court cases against
some 60 writers and publishers, including well-known novelists like
Orhan Pamuk and Ms. Shafak. The Turkish publisher of Noam Chomsky,
the 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 effort to derail European Union membership.

European officials have repeatedly warned Turkey about the law.

But people like Mr. Dink and Ms. Shafak argue that the legal
challenges may be backfiring, under the glare not only of Europe but
also 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 jail. And the very government that drafted the law
now says it needs to be changed, though it is not clear exactly how
or when.

During Ms. Shafak’s case, she received phone calls from two of the
most powerful people in Turkey: Prime Minister Recep 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 a growing
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 was 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 Ataturk’s principles,
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 Prime Minister 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, would 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."

Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting.