SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Turkey has said it will soon move to amend a controversial law that makes "insulting Turkishness" a crime punishable by up to three years in prison. But a number of laws that will remain on the books also represent a threat to free speech.
This month, Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) plans to soften the controversial Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, which makes it a crime to "denigrate Turkishness." The law has been used to prosecute numerous intellectuals (more...) who dared to speak out about the 1915 Armenian killings during the last years of the Ottoman Empire, most notably Turkish Nobel Prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk and journalist Hrant Dink. A Turkish court later dropped the charges against Pamuk. Dink was found guilty and received a six-month suspended prison sentence. A nationalist teenager later shot and killed him.
The bill to amend article 301 was approved by a parliamentary committee on Friday and is set to go to the floor on Tuesday.
Late last year, the European Union warned Turkey that if it didn't move to cut or amend the law, its prospects for membership might be reduced to null. "It is not acceptable that writers, journalists, academics and other intellectuals ... are prosecuted for simply expressing a critical but completely non-violent opinion," EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said at the time.
But even as the Turkish government moves to modify Article 301, legal experts are criticizing the fact that a number of statutes are still on the books in Turkey that pose a potential threat to free speech. Ankara to Change One Law, But Others Still Muffle Dissent >>> By Stefanie von Brochowski in Ankara, Turkey
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)
