LAW CHANGED ABOUT TURKISHNESS IN TURKEY
January 9th 2008 03:46
The Independent reports that Turkey's government, under pressure from the European Union, will propose changes this week to a law that has been used to prosecute writers and is widely seen as a major obstacle to Ankara's troubled EU membership bid.
Article 301 of the penal code makes it a crime to insult ‘Turkishness’ and has been used to prosecute Nobel Literature Laureate Orhan Pamuk and many other writers and journalists.
"The change in article 301 ... will be presented to parliament as a proposal this week," Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin told a news conference Monday. Sahin gave no details of the proposed changes, but a justice ministry official told Reuters the revised article would make it a crime to insult "the Turkish people" instead of the vaguer ‘Turkishness’.
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