TURKEY READY FOR FREE SPEECH REFORM: MINISTER

Agence France Presse — English
January 7, 2008 Monday 9:26 AM GMT

A bill amending a much-criticised article in the Turkish penal code
restricting freedom of speech will likely be submitted to parliament
this week, Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin said Monday.

"The work (on the draft) has been finalised. I believe the proposal
could be submitted to parliament this week," Sahin told reporters.

Article 301 of the penal code, which provides up to four years in jail
for "insulting Turkishness," has been criticised as a threat to freedom
of speech in both Turkey and the European Union Ankara hopes to join.

Sahin declined to say what the changes would consist of before they
are first discussed at a cabinet meeting later Monday.

Dozens of intellectuals, including 2006 Nobel literature laureate
Orhan Pamuk, have been tried under the provision and although some –
including ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink who was murdered in
January 2007 – were convicted, their sentences were suspended and no
one has been jailed so far.

The article has been used mainly against people contesting the
official line on the World War I massacres of Armenians under the
Ottoman Empire, which, much to Turkey’s ire, many countries have
recognised as genocide.

Many activists have called for the abolition of Article 301, but
the government has insisted it should stay in the books, signalling
instead an intention to narrow its scope.

Sahin said the government was determined to speed up other reforms
aimed at boosting Turkey’s EU membership prospects following EU
criticism that Ankara slackened its reform drive in 2007.

"2008 will be a year in which very serious steps will be taken in
this field," he said, without elaborating.

Ankara had little time in 2007 to deal with EU reforms as a
presidential election in April sparked a severe political crisis and
prompted early general elections in July.

Turkey began accession negotiations in October 2005 in six of 35
policy chapters candidate countries must complete, but the EU froze
talks in eight chapters in response to Ankara’s refusal to grant
trade privileges to Cyprus, which Ankara does not recognise, under
a customs union pact with the bloc.

The accession talks have also been hampered by staunch French
opposition to Turkey’s membership.