People’s Daily Online, China
Jan 26 2007

Turkey asked to amend penal code following journalist’s killing

The Turkish government was under increasing pressure to amend a penal
code article after a Turkish- Armenian journalist was shot dead last
week, the Today’s Zaman daily reported on Friday.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe said that Turkey
should scrap Article 301 — which makes it a crime to insult Turkey’s
identity, state institutions and security forces — from its penal
code, the report said.

The existence of this article, which judicially limits freedom of
expression, only validates legal and other attacks against
journalists, the report quoted a resolution passed by the assembly as
saying.

Meanwhile, Mustafa Koc, a senior member of the Turkish Industrialists
and Businessmen’s Association, complained that resistance to changing
Article 301 "feeds pessimism" about the future of the country.

Article 301 has long been criticized by the European Union for
restricting freedom of expression. Many non-governmental
organizations also slam the article, under which numerous
intellectuals have ended up in court for "insulting Turkishness," the
report said.

Critics said that the article fueled hard-line nationalism and
contributed to the murder of Hrant Dink, editor-in-chief of the
bilingual Agos newspaper, who was shot dead by a 17-year-old gunman
outside his office in Istanbul last Friday.

Before his killing, Dink had been convicted by the article of
insulting Turkey’s identity over his comments on the alleged Armenian
genocide by Ottoman Turks during World War I and received a six-month
suspended sentence.

A number of intellectuals, including winner of the 2006 Nobel
Literature Prize Orhan Pamuk, had also been tried under the article.

Turkey has denied that up to 1.5 million Armenians died as a result
of systematic genocide during the Turkish Ottoman period between 1915
and 1923.

State Minister Ali Babacan, also Turkey’s chief EU negotiator, was
quoted as saying that the government was ready to change Article 301,
but amendments to the article would require consensus, something
difficult to achieve.

Source: Xinhua