Current Status
Following the murder of Hrant Dink, Turkish deputy prime minister and foreign minister Abdullah Gül declared, "With its current state, there are certain problems with article 301. We see now that there are changes which must be made to this law."
On April 30, 2008, article 301 was amended by the Parliament of Turkey, with the following changes:
- replacement of the word "Turkishness" with the phrase "the Turkish Nation" (so "denigration of Turkishness" became "denigration of the Turkish Nation");
- reduction of the maximum penalty from three years to two;
- removal of the special provision aggravating the punishment for denigration when committed by a Turkish citizen in another country;
- requiring permission of the justice ministry to file a case. The permission procedure of Article 301 will be carried out by the Directorate General of the Criminal Affairs of the Ministry of Justice where competent judges are seconded to the Ministry. Even if a criminal investigation is launched upon the permission of the Minister of Justice, the prosecutor still has discretionary power to decide not to prosecute.
Permission was refused by the justice ministry in the July 2008 case against İbrahim Tığ, the editor of the daily Bölge Haber. The governor of Zonguldak filed a complaint citing "open denigration of the government" (“T.C. Hükümetini Alenen Aşağılamak”) after Tığ wrote a column accusing the ruling Justice and Development Party of selling the country's assets though privatization. As of July 2008, six of the seven 301 cases that have been considered by the ministry were rejected for prosecution.
According to the Turkish legal system, international conventions on human rights automatically become part of the national legal order without additional transposition once they are ratified by the Parliament. International human rights instruments to which Turkey is party have to be taken into consideration by judges and prosecutors. Therefore, prosecutors are strongly encouraged to directly apply the landmark decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and particularly the Handyside v United Kingdom case. Furthermore, the statement of the suspect cannot be taken before the permission of the Minister of Justice in order not to discredit the suspect in the eyes of the public.
Read more about this topic: Article 301 (Turkish Penal Code)
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