Turkish free speech

FT
May 2 2008 03:00

Turkey’s governing Justice and Development party (AKP) carried out a
constitutional revolution after it first came to power in 2002, putting
in place the political and civic freedoms necessary to qualify for
accession talks with the European Union that began in 2005. But then it
stopped, partly because Turks reacted very badly to the hostility to
their membership demonstrated in member states such as France and
Germany, and perhaps because its leader, prime minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, seemed to lose interest in Europe.

It should therefore be welcome – in principle – that the AKP-dominated
parliament has just amended Article 301 of the penal code. This law,
criminalising alleged insults to "Turkishness", has severely damaged
Turkey’s reputation. Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel Prize-winning novelist, was
prosecuted under it; Hrant Dink, the Armenian-Turkish editor shot dead
in Istanbul last year, was convicted under it.

Freedom House, in its annual survey on press freedom out tomorrow,
ranks Turkey as "partly free". That is the same category as recent (and
contested) EU entrants Bulgaria and Romania. But it is also the same
division as Congo-Brazzaville and Egypt, Mauritania and Paraguay –
definitely not where Turkey wants to be.

It is fair to underline that Article 301 was being abused by an
ultra-nationalist cabal to undermine the neo-Islamist AKP and sabotage
EU negotiations. But that is precisely why it must be completely
overhauled or – better still – repealed. The government has instead
tinkered with it. The article now penalises attacks on the "Turkish
state" and its founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, although
prosecutions will now have to be approved by the justice minister and
the penalties have been reduced.

That is simply not good enough.

Leaving aside that Article 301 is modelled on a provision in
Mussolini’s fascist laws, the whole notion of insult to the state is as
archaic and absolutist as lèse majesté . There is no place for it in a
confident, modern and democratic republic like Turkey that sees its
future in the EU. Mr Erdogan must try again.

True, he has problems with a judiciary trying to shut down his party
and ban him and the president from public life. It is just as true he
won a landslide last summer, enabling him to win a similarly bruising
confrontation with the army – a thumping majority made possible because
he received the backing of liberal Turks he is now letting down.

Mr Erdogan has a solid, popular and democratic platform for change. It
is high time he used it.