Changes to Article 301 Are Insufficient
Turkey is changing a law notorious for limiting free speech, but writers and publishers fear that the changes are so minor that they will continue to be arrested and tried under the new version of Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code. Other laws that limit freedom of expression also remain in force.
Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk and Armenian-Turkish editor Hrant Dink were tried for insulting Turkish identity under Article 301, as were hundreds of others. Dink was later shot dead by a militant nationalist.
Free speech is limited on a variety of issues believed by some to constitute a threat to the modern republic. The rights of the Kurdish minority, the massacres of Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks in 1915, and Islamism are all taboo; the military remains largely off-limits. These categories are very broad, so the unwitting writer, journalist or publisher might easily be hauled to court for even trivial comments taken out of context by ultra-nationalist lawyers, a powerful force in the Turkish legal system. The law is used to harrass writers, journalists, activists and others through indictments (and the resulting threats of harm from nationalist circles), even if the case isn’t strong enough to convict.
Under the draft changes to Article 301, it will be a crime to insult the Turkish nation, rather than Turkishness, and the justice minister’s permission will be required to open a case. The maximum sentence will be cut to two years from three. (see my previous post on this issue) The details of the final proposal are still being debated.
From the article (click here):
“Some lawyers and judges feel they have a mission to defend the state and the state ideology rather than the rights of the citizens,” Zarakolu, a veteran journalist and publisher, told Reuters in a cafe near his home on the Asian shore of Istanbul. His case is on hold until the amendment is passed.
Zarakolu is on trial for publishing a translation of a book about the Armenian massacres, which Ankara denies amount to genocide. He thinks he is likely to get convicted and as he already has a suspended sentence for an earlier piece of journalism, he says he could end up in jail.
Zarakolu has long angered the establishment with books about Turkey’s taboos and over the years has suffered jail and a bomb attack on his office. The book he is on trial for now, a translation of George Jerjian’s “The Truth Will Set Us Free,” is a call for reconciliation between Turks and Armenians and tells the story of how a Turk saved the writer’s Armenian grandmother.
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