Word: turkishly
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There, in a trial that vied with the forum for global attention, the 22-year-old proprietor and editor of the Aram publishing house, Fatih Tas, stood accused of disseminating propaganda against the unity of the Turkish state. The charge is often leveled against those who question Turkey's treatment of its estimated 12 million Kurds (among a total population of 65 million). Tas' "crime" was to publish material critical of Turkey in American Interventionism, a collection of essays by Noam Chomsky, the renowned American linguistics professor and longtime thorn in the side of U.S. policymakers. Tas avoided conviction...
There's a growing belief that the Turkish judiciary itself is now on trial. If the political leadership, which has been flirting with reform, avoids setting strict criteria for positive change, many feel, judges will be left to interpret the laws as they see fit - and not necessarily in ways that will help Turkey on its path to E.U. membership. "Law is not local anymore," says Vahit Bicak, who lectures on human rights at the Ankara Police Academy. "We are part of an international legal system and must have respect for global values...
Earlier this month, Turkey's multiparty parliament amended key articles of the criminal code whose purpose, civil-rights advocates have long argued, was to limit legitimate freedom of expression. Approved despite the fierce objections of conservative legislators, the changes include reduction of sentences for insulting branches of the Turkish state (including the courts and the military). The changes also make it more difficult to prosecute cases under article 312 of the penal code, under which it is an offense to incite hatred based on class, race, religion or region. That catchall clause has been used to pursue anyone expressing...
Human-rights activists and others believe the new legislation merely reflects Turkish officials' attempts to conform to E.U. norms without changing the spirit of how laws are applied. There is a prevailing sense in Turkey that laws exist to protect a "sacred" state from irrational individuals, rather than to protect individuals from possible arbitrary actions by the state. "It's up to the courts to interpret the laws in accordance with Turkey's commitment to join the European Union and to abide by the European Court of Human Rights," says Jonathan Sugden of Human Rights Watch. That view appears...
...what will the deaths of Cengiz Soydas and his - so far - 44 Turkish comrades come to mean? Soydas died last March, on the 150th day of a prison "death fast" begun in October 2000. A 29-year-old university student who had been sentenced to 15 years in prison for membership in a violent leftist organization, Soydas was the first to die. Other prisoners and some outside supporters joined him in protest and, later, in death. According to the Turkish Justice Ministry, slightly more than 100 people are now on hunger strike in a dozen prisons...