TURKEY DEBATES FREE SPEECH
PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung)
April 18 2008
Austria
ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) – "Happy is he who says: ‘I am a Turk.
The nationalist motto was coined by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the
founder of modern Turkey. Its display in schools, hospitals and
military barracks helps explain why Turkey is struggling to meet a
key demand for membership in the European Union: overhaul of a law
that bars insults to Turkish identity.
On Friday, Parliament’s justice panel began debating a government
proposal to soften Article 301 of Turkey’s penal code, which
has been used to prosecute Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk and other
intellectuals. Europe says the law should be abolished because it
restricts freedom of speech; many Turks resent what they view as
interference in their affairs.
The governing party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is
expected to approve the amendment of Article 301 when Parliament
votes as early as Tuesday. But critics say the government plan is a
halfhearted gesture, an attempt to placate staunch opponents of the
law without alienating its supporters.
Cengiz Aktar, an EU expert at Bahcesehir University in Istanbul, said
he believed the expected amendment would have a "minimal" impact on
Turkey’s bid to join the European club. He also noted there were at
least 20 other articles in Turkey’s penal code that have "the same
mentality of killing freedom of speech.
Under Article 301, the maximum sentence for denigrating Turkish
identity or insulting the country’s institutions is three years in
prison. The government proposal would reduce the time to two years,
triggering a suspension for first-time offenders.
Under the plan, the president would have to approve prosecutions under
Article 301. Also, the article would refer to the crime of denigrating
the "Turkish nation," a term viewed as more narrow than the vague
"Turkishness.
In a statement, New York-based Human Rights Watch said the law should
be repealed.
"The government’s proposal merely tinkers with the wording of the law,
while maintaining its most problematic features," the group said. It
cited other legal restrictions on freedom of speech, including Turkey’s
anti-terror law and laws on crimes against the national founder.
Ataturk designed his nationalist motto in an effort to build a strong
Turkey from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, a network of territories
in Europe, Africa and the Middle East that had been unified by force
or in the name of Islam. He largely succeeded, amid war, slaughter
and pressure from Western powers.
Today, many Turks believe their nationhood faces the same threats that
it did nearly a century ago. The military has etched Ataturk’s slogan
on hillsides in southeast Turkey, where it is fighting an insurgency
by Kurdish separatists.
Many students must intone the Turkish-language version _ "Ne mutlu
Turkum diyene" _ before class. The slogan is inscribed below statues
of Ataturk at universities, football stadiums and roadsides.
The opposition Nationalist Action Party has launched a television ad
campaign against any changes to Article 301 that includes the refrain:
"Wake up Turkey! It is time for unity.
Faruk Bal, deputy chairman of the Party, said the weakening of the
law would allow Kurdish rebels to generate propaganda against the
Turkish state with impunity.
Supporters of Article 301 also say some European countries, including
Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, have similar laws. Opponents,
however, point out that Turkey enforces its version far more
rigorously.
Hrant Dink, an ethnic Armenian journalist who was gunned down in 2007,
was prosecuted under Article 301 for referring to the mass killings
of Armenians by Turks in the early 20th century as "genocide.
Dink’s alleged killer was a teenager influenced by extreme
nationalists, and mourners attributed his death to the atmosphere
of animosity surrounding the journalist’s legal problems. Dink had
received numerous death threats.
Erdogan’s government has been criticized for slow progress on EU-backed
reforms, and at home his Islamic-oriented party is distracted by
a prosecutor’s efforts to ban it for allegedly violating secular
principles crafted by Ataturk.
Murat Belge, a leftist writer who has been prosecuted under Article
301, suggested the Turkish state should absorb insults or criticism
without resorting to law retaliation.
"Somebody who overturns the basic principles of decency punishes
himself," he said in an interview with Associated Press Television
News. "Why take him seriously.