EU HAILS TURKEY FREE SPEECH MOVE

BBC NEWS
7375327.stm
2008/04/30 12:43:33 GMT

The EU has described a vote by the Turkish parliament to soften its
controversial law limiting free speech as a "welcome step forward".

Under the law, intellectuals including Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk
have been accused of "insulting Turkishness".

The EU had set reform of Article 301 of Turkey’s penal code as a
necessary move on the road to membership of the bloc.

An EU spokesman said the EU now "looks forward to further moves to
change similar articles in the penal code".

TURKISHNESS LAW REFORM Crime to insult the Turkish nation, rather
than Turkishness Justice minister required to open each case Maximum
sentence of two years in jail, rather than three

Amadeu Altafaj Tardio told reporters that the article was "the main
one" – but not the only one – that needed reform, to ensure an end to
"ungrounded prosecutions".

He said it was now time for the Turkish authorities to focus on
guaranteeing "full freedom of expression for all Turkish citizens".

Since 2003, hundreds of people have been tried for "insulting
Turkishness" and nationalists, as well as the main opposition,
opposed any change to the law.

Article 301 was used against novelist Orhan Pamuk because of comments
he wrote about the massacres of Armenians by the Ottomans in 1915-16.

Armenian-Turkish editor Hrant Dink, who was shot dead last year, had
been convicted under it. It was his murder by an ultra-nationalist
that spurred the most recent pressure to reform the penal code.

Insulting the Turkish nation – rather than "Turkishness" – will still
be a crime, punishable by two years in jail.

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