NTV, Turkey
Oct 11 2007
Newspaper editor, publisher sentenced for "insulting Turkishness"
Arat Dink is the son of Hrant Dink, the former editor of Agos who was
murdered in January outside the paper’s office.
Istanbul: Arat Dink, editor-in-chief of the weekly Turkish Armenian
language newspaper Agos, and Serkis Seropyan, the paper’s publisher,
have each been sentenced to one year in prison on charges of
insulting Turkishness by an Istanbul court Thursday [11 October].
However, the Basic Criminal Court of the Sisli District of Istanbul
decided to suspend the prison terms as neither Dink and Seropyan had
previous criminal records.
Both were found guilty under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code,
which covers the crime of insulting Turkey, Turkish identity, the
state or the people.
The European Union and human rights groups have been pushing Turkey
to remove the article from the statute books, saying that it
restricts freedom of speech.