GOVERNMENT SHELVES AMENDMENT TO ARTICLE 301
Ercan Yavuz
Today’s Zaman
March 11 2008
Turkey
A possible amendment to the controversial Article 301 of the Turkish
Penal Code (TCK) has been shelved indefinitely, according to sources
in the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party).
Article 301 criminalizes denigrating the Turkish state, government
and military and a vague concept it terms "Turkishness," in ambiguous
wording making it possible to charge and convict people over the
slightest criticism of official policy on a number of issues.
Turkey’s Nobel Prize-winning author, Orhan Pamuk, Armenian journalist
Hrant Dink and author Elif ªafak, as well as many other journalists
and intellectuals, have been tried under Article 301. The EU has long
regarded the article as an obstacle to free speech in Turkey.
However, the government has been accused of dragging its feet on
reforming Article 301. Speaking to Today’s Zaman on Monday, Nihat
Ergun said the AK Party has finished a draft of the amendment to the
article but added, "I don’t know exactly when it will be brought up
[in Parliament]." The draft of the amendment to 301, prepared by
Justice Minister Mehmet Ali ªahin, caused tension in the AK Party,
which is why the proposal has not made it to Parliament thus far.
ªahin’s original text required prosecutors to obtain special
permission from the justice minister before starting an investigation
on 301-related charges.
An alternative to this would be to have this permission granted by
the president. The AK Party ministers could not reach consensus even
on the matter of who should grant permission to start a probe.
In the original amendment text, ªahin had proposed replacing the word
"Turkishness" with "the Turkish nation." His version also reduced the
maximum sentence for a 301 violation to two years from three. It also
added a phrase that would put the burden of proof on the prosecution
to show that there was "intent" to denigrate the subjects mentioned
in the article.
Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek, the most outspoken critic of ªahin’s
draft, argued that if the responsibility for authorizing 301-related
investigations was assigned to the justice minister, this would make
the minister a target. Cicek expressed the opinion that a committee
with at least 11 members should decide whether legal action could
proceed on a 301-related charge. Some AK Party leaders found the
argument reasonable, making ªahin withdraw his version before the
amendment could make its way to Parliament as a new bill.
Now senior sources in the AK Party say the possible changes to Article
301 have been shelved. They say the primary reason for this is that the
opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which recently supported
the AK Party’s constitutional amendment to lift a ban on the headscarf
on university campuses, is preparing a campaign against making any
changes to 301. The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP)
and the Democratic Left Party (DSP) also oppose changing 301. The only
other party that supports the change is the pro-Kurdish Democratic
People’s Party (DTP), which has 20 seats in the 550-seat Parliament.
Another reason behind the AK Party’s shelving of the amendment for
now is the opinion that there is actually nothing wrong with the law.
Proponents of this view, including Cicek, believe the solution
to the problems of Article 301 is not to be found in changing the
article itself, but instead in changing Turkey’s prosecutors and
judges into more free-thinking people. The Council of Europe has been
training thousands of Turkish judges and prosecutors in a program on
free speech for the past two years, a process at the end of which,
opponents of changing Article 301 believe, the problem would be solved.
–Boundary_(ID_NieNfDa7LLS/o7SP1vS40A)–