Bay Area Indymedia, CA –
Oct 27 2006
Freedom of speech under continuing attack in Turkey
by wsws (reposted)
Friday Oct 27th, 2006 7:27 AM
Last week, a court in Istanbul began hearings against the Turkish
publisher, editors and translator of the book Manufacturing Consent:
The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Noam Chomsky and Edward S.
Herman. The charges related to Article 301 and Article 216 of the
Turkish Penal Code (TCK).
Article 301 is a highly controversial law that has been used to
penalise many writers, journalists, publishers and even translators
and editors. Amnesty International has called for the repeal of
Article 301, which was first introduced as part of the legislative
reforms of June 1, 2005, and poses a direct threat to the fundamental
right to freedom of expression.
The article states that anyone who `publicly denigrates Turkishness,
the Republic or the Grand National Assembly of Turkey be punishable
by imprisonment of between six months and three years.’ If the public
`denigration’ is directed against Turkey’s government, the judicial
institutions of the state, the military or security organisations,
punishment is up to two years. One of the most recent cases involving
Article 301 involved the Turkish writer and recent Nobel Literature
Prize winner Orhan Pamuk, who was charged for speaking out openly on
the massacre of Armenians by Turkey at the beginning of the twentieth
century.
The case launched against Chomsky’s publishers in Turkey, the Aram
Yayincilik Publishing House, its owner Fatih Tas, editors Omer Faruk
Kurhan and Lutfu Taylan Tosun and translator Ender Abadoglu accuses
them of openly humiliating Turkish identity, the Turkish Republic and
parliament, as well as spreading public hatred and enmity by
publishing this book. If convicted, the defendants face jail
sentences of between one-and-a-half and six years.
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