INTERNATIONAL PRESS INSTITUTE RESOLUTION ON TURKEY
The Ukrainian Times
March 11, 2008 Tuesday
Meeting at its Annual General Assembly on 14 May 2007 in Istanbul,
Turkey, the IPI membership adopted a resolutioncalling on the Turkish
government to revise according to democratic principles Article
301 of the Turkish Penal Code(TCK), which has been often used to
persecute journalists.
The TCK came into effect on 1 June 2005 and, according to IPIs
information, over 60 journalists, publishers andwriters have since
been prosecuted or faced criminal charges under Article 301, and
newspapers and periodicals have beenclosed.
Furthermore, IPI members are appalled at the case of Hrant Dink,
the Turkish-Armenian journalist who was murdered on 19 January 2007,
after being targeted in series of trials under Article 301.
While acknowledging progress made by Turkey in recent years in the
protection of press freedom and freedom ofexpression, IPI would
like to stress the importance of repealing from the TCK all articles
used to restrict thejournalists ability to report freely and express
their opinion.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
