TURKISH PROFESSOR FALLS VICTIM TO ARTICLE 301

PanARMENIAN.Net
30.01.2008 14:49 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ 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 said he was prepared to take his case to the European
Court of Human Rights if necessary. "I want to emphasize 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."

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.

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 said.

"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, BBC reports.