GROUP SEEKS END TO LAW AGAINST INSULTING TURKEY
By Sebnem Arsu
The New York Times
Feb 8 2007
ISTANBUL, Feb. 8 – A group of civic organizations today proposed
changes to Article 301, a controversial section of the Turkish penal
code that makes insulting Turkey or Turkishness a crime. The section
has been used against intellectuals, journalists and writers like the
Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk and the newspaper editor Hrant Dink,
who was shot dead in an Istanbul street in January.
But critics said the new proposal uses archaic language that would be
just as vague and hard to interpret as the existing article, which
the government refuses to abolish, and would not solve the problems
with the current law.
Many Turks believe that Article 301 is primarily to blame for the
murder of Mr. Dink, an ethnic Armenian who was prosecuted under the
law for comments he made about the mass deaths of Armenians before
and during World War I. His conviction publicly labeled him as a
traitor against the state in the eyes of many Turkish nationalists.
The subject of the mass deaths of the 1910’s is, nearly a century
later, still among the sorest in Turkey. Many historians call the
episode genocide on the part of the Ottoman army, but the Turkish
government denies that and insists that both ethnic Turks and ethnic
Armenians suffered in those years of wartime hardship.
Turkish courts and nationalist groups tend to interpret any public
statements that contradict that official version of events as an
"insult against the Turkish state" and a crime under Article 301.
Mr. Dink’s death reinvigorated efforts to amend or repeal the law,
which has helped attract harsh criticism of the Turkish government by
the European Union for suppressing freedom of expression by prosecuting
writers and intellectuals.
The government has responded by allowing civic organizations from
across the political spectrum to take the lead in drafting proposed
amendments to the law, while insisting that it must be retained in
some form.
"Leading up to the general elections in November, the government
has escaped from political responsibility on a controversial issue
like Article 301 in fear of losing voters," said Gencay Gurun, the
general secretary of Turkish Chamber of Doctors, which dropped out
of the amendment-drafting effort and called instead for total repeal.
"Changes are only a facade, and can never prevent bitter consequences,
as we’ve witnessed with Mr. Dink’s murder."
The new proposal, signed by 10 major civic organizations, is meant to
draw a clearer distinction between criticism and insult, but critics
say it fails to do so. For example, in place of a crime of "insulting
Turkishness," the new draft outlaws "openly abasing and deriding"
the Turkish identity.
The spokesman for the group, Davut Okutcu of the Economic Development
Foundation, acknowledged that the amendments would make no difference
unless the mind set of the country’s judges also changed, toward
greater tolerance of free expression.
"We do not claim that this is the best version," Mr. Okutcu said in a
telephone interview. "We consider this draft as an encouragement to
support better application of law, which will ultimately be worded
by Turkey’s lawmakers."
Article 301 is not the only provision of Turkish law that has been
interpreted to support prosecution of speech and opinion. Perihan
Magden, a columnist for the newspaper Radikal, was charged under a law
that makes encouraging draft-age men from fulfilling their mandatory
military service a crime. That law was not addressed by the committee.
Ms. Magden, who was given police protection following Mr. Dink’s death,
said the proposed changes to Article 301 were too small to matter.
"The fact that I have to live in my own country under police
protection shows the government acknowledgment that something is
wrong," Ms. Magden said. "They can and they have to prevent this."
The government, on the other hand, says that the European Union
bears much of the responsibility for an underlying problem in Turkey,
rising nationalist feeling that manifests itself as intolerance of
criticism and resentment of demands from abroad for change.
Egemen Bagis, a spokesman for the ruling Justice and Development party,
noted that many Turks were angered when the union froze talks over
possible Turkish membership in 2006, after Turkey had worked for years
to overhaul its laws at the union’s request to qualify for membership.
The stated reason for the freeze was that Turkey had failed to open its
ports and airports to trade with the ethnic Greek part of Cyprus, whose
government is internationally recognized and belongs to the union (the
ethnic Turkish government in the northern part of the divided island
is recognized only by Turkey). But many here saw that as a pretext,
and that rising anti-Muslim prejudice in Europe was the real reason.
"We need the motivation by the E.U. in order to improve freedom of
expression alongside other democratic reforms in Turkey," Mr. Bagis
said. "The E.U.’s double standard in treating Turkey’s candidacy,
however, is the primary reason behind the growing nationalist
tendencies in Turkey, and we expect the E.U. to change this attitude
for a better future in Turkey."