International Herald Tribune, France
Feb 15 2007
Turkey aide foresees revisions to Article 301
By Dan Bilefsky Published: February 15, 2007
BRUSSELS: Turkey plans to revise a controversial law that makes
insulting Turkishness a crime by the end of this year, Ankara’s chief
European Union negotiator said Thursday.
The law – Article 301 of the Turkish penal code – has resulted in
prosecutions against leading Turkish intellectuals, including the
Nobel author Orhan Pamuk and Hrant Dink, an Armenian- Turkish
journalist killed last month in Istanbul.
Ali Babacan, a leading member of the governing Justice and
Development Party and a minister in the cabinet, said the law was
causing harm to Turkey.
Asked if Ankara would abandon the law, he said: "That is not going to
happen. Article 301 will stay." But he said the government was
looking at ways to change the way the law was being implemented and
said his hope was that it could be altered before elections in
November.
Turkish analysts said such a change would most likely entail
narrowing the legal definition of what constitutes an insult to
Turkishness and amending the law to make it compatible with the
European Court of Human Rights.
"As a government, we have indicated we are not happy with what is
going on in Turkey with regard to that law," Babacan said. "When
novelists, columnists and Nobel Prize winners go back and forth from
the courtroom, this is not good for Turkey."
The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, has been
particularly concerned by the law, which attracted global criticism
last year when Pamuk was put on trial for telling a Swiss newspaper
that more than a million Armenians were massacred by Ottoman Turks
during World War I. Critics of the law also say that it contributed
to a nationalistic political climate in Turkey that led to the murder
of Dink, an outspoken proponent of free speech who had criticized the
law.
"A strong signal is needed to change the way the law is being
implemented," Babacan said.
He said Turkey was going through a difficult period in its relations
with the EU following the decision late last year by Union leaders to
partially suspend entry negotiations over Ankara’s refusal to open
its ports to Cyprus, an EU member. Babacan said the intensifying
animosity toward Turkey in Europe was making headlines in Turkey and
risked spurring an anti-EU backlash.
"There has been severe damage to the credibility of the EU process in
Turkish eyes," he said. "Until now the question was when is Turkey
going to be ready for the EU. But after the events of 2006, what will
be more important is whether the EU will be ready for Turkey."
Babacan said that despite the EU’s decision to freeze Turkey’s EU
talks in eight areas, including some trade matters, Ankara was
progressing in other areas like economic and monetary policy. But he
said that there had been little if any progress on the Cyprus issue.
The northern part of the island is controlled by a government
recognized by Ankara but not the EU.
"We are trying everything we can do to find a way out," he said. "But
we have made so many gestures and we are seeing no reciprocity."
Babacan added that Ankara believed that Cyprus was intent on
prolonging the crisis because it had no interest in seeing Turkey
gain the economic and political privileges of EU membership.