BBC News
Jan 28 2008
Academic sentenced over Ataturk
By Sarah Rainsford
BBC News, Istanbul
A Turkish court has handed down a 15-month suspended jail term to an
academic found guilty of insulting the state’s founder, Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk.
Professor Atilla Yayla said the trial highlighted the limits on free
speech and academic debate in Turkey.
His crime was to suggest in academic discussion that the early
Turkish republic was not as progressive as portrayed in official
books.
His lawyers say they will lodge an immediate appeal.
Professor Yayla told the BBC he was prepared to take his case to the
European Court of Human Rights if necessary.
"I want to emphasise again and again that Turkey’s most pressing
problem is freedom of expression," he said.
Turkey should evolve into being a country where people are not
punished because of their thoughts
Prof Atilla Yayla
The prosecutor had asked the judge to impose a five-year prison
sentence.
This trial has become a test of academic freedom in Turkey, which is
pursuing a long-term ambition to become an EU member.
Mr Yayla had also warned that, as Turkey moved closer to Europe,
Europeans would inevitably question why Turks displayed so many
pictures and statues of Ataturk.
The professor was vilified by parts of the Turkish press, suspended
from work at an Ankara university, and brought to trial.
Mr Yayla, a well-known liberal, denied the charge of insulting
Ataturk and argued that academics must be guaranteed freedom of
expression to pursue their research.
‘Insulting Turkishness’
The Turkish parliament is preparing to debate amending another law
that restricts free speech.
Article 301 on "insulting Turkishness" has been used to prosecute
dozens of writers and intellectuals, including Nobel prize winner
Orhan Pamuk.
"Many foreign observers concentrate on Article 301, but there are
other laws and articles in different laws, which have the potential
to restrict freedom of expression, as it is in my case," Mr Yayla
told the BBC.
"What is important is that Turkey should evolve into being a country
where people are not punished because of their thoughts. And to
achieve this we ought to make reforms in the whole legal system and
also change the mentality in the judiciary. Otherwise Turkey will go
on suffering."
The EU has been pressing for a change to Article 301 for well over a
year, but the government has faced stiff opposition from
nationalists, both within the ruling party and in the opposition.
But changes to the law which protects Ataturk are not up for
discussion.