20 Jun 2008 | News, Turkey
A publisher has been sentenced to five months in prison for ‘insulting the Turkish Republic’. Index on Censorship reports
A Turkish publisher has become the latest victim of the notorious article 301, which makes it a crime to ‘insult the Turkish republic’.
A judge ruled that Ragip Zarakolu, who published British author George Jerjian’s The Truth Will Set Us Free, had broken the law, by printing references to the Armenian ‘genocide’ of 1915. The Turkish government does not dispute that many Armenians were killed in 1915, but refuses to recognise the events as genocide.
Zarakolu has been sentenced to five months in prison.
Speaking to Index, Zarakolu said he believed the decision to convict him had been made from the start. ‘The judge and prosecutor were harsh. It was an ideological court — on a mission to defend the system and the state philosophy.’
He also suggested the politics of his case were determined by the extent to which the AKP government, with its roots in Islam, feels under threat in the current climate. A case opens in a Turkish court next month seeking a ban on the AKP — many in Turkey’s establishment see the religious party as a threat to the secular principles of the state.
‘Everyone is playing their own game — it’s like an arm-wrestling contest and I’m in the middle.’
Zarakolu will appeal the sentence, and has plans to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.
30 Apr 2008 | News
Turkey’s controversial article 301 has been reworded. Under an amendment passed by the parliament this morning, The term ‘Turkishness’ is replaced by the ‘Turkish nation’, and the term ‘Republic’ with ‘State of the Republic of Turkey’.
Index on Censorship last week honoured Arat Dink, who has been prosecuted under 301 for insulting Turkishness, with a Freedom of Expression Award.
Read more here
13 Mar 2008 | News
Nihat Ergun of Turkey’s ruling AK party has said he does not know when a proposed amendment to Article 301 of the Turkish penal code will be raised in parliament.
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25 Feb 2008 | News
The alleged killers of journalist Hrant Dink return to court today, with many groups expressing misgivings about the conduct of their trial, writes Charlotte Alfred
The fourth hearing in the trial of suspects accused of killing Hrant Dink, the Turkish-Armenian editor of Agos, starts today in Istanbul, amid widespread concern over the inadequacy of the Turkish investigation into the murder.
Dink was assassinated outside the newspaper’s offices in Istanbul on 19 January 2007. Ogun Samast, a teenage ultra-nationalist, was arrested the day after the murder and reportedly confessed to the killing. A total of 18 suspects, including Samast, were later charged with planning and organising the murder.
Over more than a year of investigations, Turkish and European lawyers and human rights organisations have stressed the importance of a fair and transparent process, and highlighted the case as a test of the rule of law in Turkey.
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