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Turkey: Parliament Approves 'Cosmetic'
Free-Speech Reform
1.5.2008
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May 1, 2008
Turkey's parliament has voted to amend Article 301,
a controversial law that limited free speech by
permitting the prosecution of people for "insulting
Turkishness."
Under the changes, which must still be approved by
the country’s president, insulting Turkishness would
no longer be a crime, but insulting the Turkish
nation could still land you in prison.
According to Amberin Zaman, the Turkey correspondent
for "The Economist" magazine, the distinction
between insulting Turkishness and insulting the
Turkish nation isn’t any clearer in Turkish than it
is in translation. That leaves many people wondering
how to interpret the revision to Article 301.
"A lot of people are asking the same question, and
the change seems to be more cosmetic than anything
else," Zaman says. "Indeed, what is the difference?
And equally, what do they mean by the 'Turkish
nation'? Does it mean ethnic Turks? Does it
encompass Kurds, as well? Nobody really understands
what this means."
In recent years, thousands of people have been
prosecuted in Turkey for “insulting Turkishness,” as
set out in Article 301. They include academics,
historians, journalists, and writers -- including
Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk.
Dink Assassination
Pamuk was tried for stating, in an interview with a
Swiss magazine, that "30,000 Kurds and a million
Armenians were killed in these lands, and nobody but
me dares to talk about it." The charges against
Pamuk were later dropped. But contrary to his claim,www.ekurd.net
Pamuk was not the only
person in Turkey discussing the Armenian issue --
and getting into trouble for it.
In 2006, the well-known Armenian-Turkish journalist
Hrant Dink was prosecuted under Article 301 for
insulting Turkishness, and received a six-month
suspended sentence. He was subsequently
assassinated
by a militant nationalist.
The European Union demanded that Turkey drop
restrictions on free speech as a precondition to
eventually joining the bloc. The
government-sponsored amendment to Article 301
appears to be an attempt to satisfy the EU, as well
as Turkish nationalists. And in Zaman’s assessment,
it will probably do neither.
"I think that this was a sort of balancing act,"
Zaman says, "and I think in the process they fell
off the tightrope, because neither the nationalists
-- who they were trying to appease -- sound terribly
happy, nor does the EU. In fact, we've heard many EU
officials, at least in private, complain that this
was just a cosmetic change and didn't go anywhere
near addressing their concerns about free expression
in Turkey."
If the amendment becomes law, much will depend on
how Turkish prosecutors and judges choose to
interpret what constitutes “insulting the Turkish
nation.” The one concrete change from the amendment
is that the maximum jail time for the offense will
now be two years, rather than the previous three.
But Zaman is skeptical that the amended law will
offer more protection to those who touch sensitive
political and historical subjects.
"I think we will continue to see writers like Orhan
Pamuk and others who dare to challenge the official
history -- be it on the issue of the massacre of
Armenians in 1915 or the fate of the Kurds," she
says. "I think that such prosecutions will
continue."
The EU presidency, currently held by Slovenia, has
issued a statement calling the amendment to Article
301 "a constructive step forward in ensuring freedom
of expression." But several human rights groups say
the amendment does not go far enough. They are
calling for a change to other laws that restrict
expression, including Turkey's anti-terror law and
its laws on crimes against the country's founder,
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
Copyright, respective author or news agency, rferl
org
** Kurds are not recognized as an official minority
in Turkey and are denied rights granted to other
minority groups. Under EU pressure, Turkey recently
granted Kurds limited rights for broadcasts and
education in the Kurdish language, but critics say
the measures do not go far enough.
The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan" Southeast
Turkey.
Others estimate over 40 million Kurds live in Big
Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey.
Turkey is home to 25 million ethnic Kurds, a large
Turkey's Kurdish community openly sympathise with
the Kurdish PKK for a Kurdish homeland in the
country's mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey.
Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed
severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish language,
prohibiting the language in education and broadcast
media. The Kurdish alphabet is still not recognized
in Turkey, and use of the Kurdish letters X, W, Q
which do not exist in the Turkish alphabet has led
to judicial persecution in 2000 and 2003
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan
but unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag
is banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it
is a criminal offence"
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey)
wikipedia
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