TURKEY: EU WELCOMES CHANGE IN PENAL CODE

Adnkronos International Italia
cs/?id=1.0.2122044229
April 30 2008
Italy

Ankara, 30 April (AKI) – The European Union has welcomed a move by
the Turkish parliament to soften its controversial law restricting
freedom of speech as a "welcome step forward".

The EU has indicated that reform of article 301 of Turkey’s penal
code was necessary to advance the country’s bid for EU membership.

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

The Turkish parliament on Tuesday voted 250-65 in favour of amendments
to article 301 of the penal code making it a crime to insult the
Turkish nation, rather than "Turkishness".

Calls for reform to the law have grown since last year’s murder of
Hrant Dink, a Turkish journalist of Armenian descent who had been
charged with "insulting Turkishness."

Nobel-prize winning author Orhan Pamuk was also charged under the
law in 2005 after he spoke in an interview about the mass killings
of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War I. The charges were
later dropped.

According to the Turkish daily, The New Anatolian, hundreds of people
have been tried under the controversial law since 2003.

However, critics said the amendments do not go far enough. Insulting
the Turkish nation is punishable by a maximum of two years in jail,
rather than three years previously for the crime of "insulting
Turkishness".

The new law however allows a judge to issue a suspended sentence,
enabling those convicted under article 301 to avoid serving a jail
term.

The EU has long called for changes to article 301 arguing that the
law places severe restrictions on free speech in Turkey.

The issue threatened to stall Turkey’s EU accession talks.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress