Article 301: Same law, different words
armradio.am
03.05.2008 13:11
On Wednesday, April 30, 2008, the Turkish Parliament adopted the AKP
bill which `amends’ the disturbing article 301 that penalizes freedom
of expression in Turkey. The amendment, which consists only of
replacing the crime of `insulting Turkishness’ with that of `insulting
the Turkish nation,’ was adopted by 250 votes for and 65 against. In
addition, prosecutions will now have to be pre-approved by the Ministry
of Justice and the maximum penalty will be reduced from three to two
years imprisonment.
For several years now, article 301, in its initial form, has been
widely invoked to prosecute any author of dissident opinions on Turkish
taboos such as the Armenian Genocide and its acknowledgment, the
Kurdish issue or the occupation of Cyprus. A segment of the Turkish
public opinion considers that the charges against journalist Hrant
Dink, at that time, for his article led to his tragic assassination in
January 2007.
Throughout Europe and even in Turkey, a number of entities have
denounced this parody of reform and have demanded a complete abolition
of article 301 and other clauses.
The general view is that the `reform’ will not change anything with
respect to the critical situation regarding freedom of expression in
Turkey and intellectuals will still be prosecuted. Indeed, the Turkish
Minister of Justice intervened during the debates in Parliament to make
clear that `with this law, there is no question of letting people
freely insult the Turkish identity’.
`This so-called reform is a joke’, declared Hilda Tchoboian, the
chairperson of the European Armenian Federation. `It curiously
resembles the manipulation of article 305, which remained absolutely
identical in its punitive clauses, but from which the Turkish
Parliament just removed the statement of motives that cited the
Armenian Genocide and the occupation of Cyprus,’ she explained.
`The European Union should not let itself be anaesthetized by this
gross manipulation of words,’ stated Hilda Tchoboian.