TRIAL FOR "INSULTING TURKISHNESS" STILL HOUNDING CONVERTS
by Barbara G. Baker
ChristianNewsToday.com
March 17 2008
In spite of EU pressure, revision of Article 301 appears at a
standstill.
SILIVRI, Turkey, In an effort to prolong the trial of two Turkish
converts to Christianity accused of "denigrating Islam and
Turkishness," three gendarme soldiers on Thursday (March 13) were
summoned to testify before the Silivri Criminal Court in northwestern
Turkey as witnesses for the prosecution – which has yet to provide
any evidence for its case.
Turan Topal and Hakan Tastan, who were searched, detained and then
charged in October 2006 under Turkey’s controversial Article 301
restricting freedom of speech, have been on trial for 18 months. The
case was further delayed Thursday when two witnesses summoned to
testify failed to show up, although at least one of them had been in
the corridor of the courthouse just before the session started.
Accordingly, the judge ordered that prosecution witnesses Kemal
Kalyoncu and Emin Demirci be brought "forcibly" to the next hearing,
set for June 24. Testimony is also expected at the June hearing from
an additional three gendarme soldiers in Silivri, as well as three
from the Istanbul Gendarme Headquarters.
"From our side, we can say that the outcome of the hearing was
positive," defense lawyer Haydar Polat told Compass. "The witnesses
simply confirmed what happened in their investigation, without
producing any evidence whatever of the charges against my clients."
But on the negative side, Polat said, "All these new witnesses are
unnecessary."
The state prosecutor had called for the Christians’ acquittal last
July, noting that the youthful plaintiffs in the case had given
contradictory testimonies and no credible evidence had been produced
to prove the charges.
But the new judge assigned to the case in November accepted prosecution
lawyer demands to call another dozen witnesses to testify.
"Of course our clients are distressed by this," Polat told Compass,
noting that the two Christians are being required to attend and hear
the new prosecution witnesses, some of whom deliberately fail to
appear in court. "All these extra witnesses are being called simply
for the purpose of prolonging the case. There is no other purpose."
The three soldiers from the Silivri Gendarme Headquarters testified
separately to their involvement in searching the defendants’ homes
and office on October 11, 2006, when they said they found a large
number of Bibles and Christian documents, as well as several computers.
One of the soldiers said that at the time of their court-ordered
investigation, military intelligence officers had shown them
an organizational chart, listing names of alleged leaders of the
detained Christians’ group, which is accused of conducting illegal
religious activities.
Although the Christians’ trial in Silivri is officially held in
"open" court, the current judge has refused to admit any Turkish or
international press to observe the last two hearings.
Divine Delay
Defendant Topal told Compass that as he drank tea with several police
officers on duty at the courthouse during the hour-long delay for
yesterday’s hearing to begin, they asked him why he had left Islam
and become a Christian.
"They insisted that I was being ‘used’ by Christian missionaries,
that they were paying me lots of money to do this," Topal said. "I
explained that I came to faith 17 years ago all by myself, reading
the New Testament, without knowing any other Christian in Turkey."
Topal told them that he was not getting rich, and that if they believed
otherwise they could visit him in his one-room flat in Istanbul.
"Of course, they think I have somehow broken the law," Topal said.
"So I just told them that I am not doing anything that is illegal,
because under the democratic laws of Turkey, everyone is free to
practice and witness about his personal faith."
Prosecution Lawyer Jailed
Although six local attorneys for the prosecution were present at
the March 13 hearing, the ultranationalist lawyer leading their team
since the case opened in November 2006 was notably absent.
Prosecution attorney Kemal Kerincsiz has been jailed since mid-January
on charges of direct involvement in the criminal "Ergenekon" gang
suspected of instigating a string of unsolved murders over the past
two decades.
Another jailed Ergenekon suspect, Sevgi Erenerol, had accompanied
Kerincsiz to all the previous Silivri hearings against Topal and
Tastan. Erenerol was the spokesperson for the so-called Turkish
Orthodox Church, a bogus institution which reportedly became a front
for laundering the cash for assassination hits engineered by Ergenekon.
According to Turkish media reports, the Ergenekon gang had a direct
hand in the murder of three Christians in Malatya last April, as well
as the assassinations of an Italian priest in Trabzon in February
2006 and an Armenian editor in January 2007.
Kerincsiz had gained national notoriety since May 2005, when he began
to open cases against well-known Turkish academics, journalists and
intellectuals under Article 301 provisions.
301 Changes ‘Shelved Indefinitely’
A senior member of the European Parliament declared last month that
the European Union was losing patience with Turkey’s ruling Justice
and Development Party (AKP) over its failure to change the restrictive
Article 301.
"We’re preparing a report for the European Parliament which will be
voted on in April," Joost Lagendijk told the British Broadcasting
Corporation on February 11. "If nothing has moved by then on freedom
of expression, the report will be negative."
Turkey’s prime minister, justice minister and president have declared
repeatedly over the past two years that amending the law was both
needful and "high on their agenda."
But last week AKP deputy Nihat Ergun admitted that although a revised
draft of Article 301 was completed, it had been shelved indefinitely.
"I don’t know exactly when it will be brought up [in Parliament],"
Ergun told Today’s Zaman newspaper last Tuesday (March 11).
Reportedly this reflects accommodations to the opposition Nationalist
Movement Party , which supported the AKP’s recent constitutional
amendment to allow headscarves on university campuses but opposes
making any changes to Article 301.
Nevertheless, Foreign Minister Ali Babacan claimed on Channel 7
television yesterday that "in a very short time" the AKP government’s
proposed amendments to Article 301 would be brought before the
Turkish Parliament.
Babacan said that after the Foundations Law, Article 301 was the second
most important package of political reforms now pending in Turkey.
Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek and other senior AKP members have
insisted that there is nothing wrong with the current law. Instead,
they say, the state simply needs to educate its prosecutors and judges
regarding free speech issues.
Angered by ongoing criticism of his stance, Cicek claimed in a January
10 interview, "Article 301 is not my personal issue. And 301 is not
a problem for anyone in Turkey."
"Tell that to Rakel’s face!" shouted a banner headline in Taraf
newspaper the next morning. Rakel Dink’s husband, Armenian Christian
journalist Hrant Dink, was assassinated in January 2007 while under
trial for several alleged violations of Article 301.
Proposed AKP changes in Article 301, such as reducing the maximum
sentence from three to two years in prison and requiring prosecutors
to get the Justice Minister’s permission to file charges, have been
labeled "cosmetic" by their critics, who demand the law be abolished
completely.
"What the AKP is proposing as ‘reform’ in that contentious article
is not reform at all, but an attempt to deceive," Turkish Daily News
editor Yusuf Kanli wrote in a January 9 editorial.
"Hrant was killed and scores of other Turkish intellectuals were
harassed and made targets under that Penal Code clause," Kanli said.
"We would prefer to see this contentious article erased…all
together."