Turkey May Relax Free Speech Limits
ISTANBUL Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signaled that he is prepared to amend a law limiting free speech, in an apparent 11th-hour attempt to prevent a crisis with the European Union.
The surprise move Sunday by Erdogan came just three days before the European Commission is expected to publish a report criticizing Turkey for sluggishness on reforms necessary if it wants to join the 25-member bloc.
"The move looks desperate," said Ilker Domac, a Turkish economist. "It shows how badly things are going with Turkey's EU membership prospects."
Talks with the EU have reached an impasse that could result in the suspension of the country's EU membership talks, some Turks fear. Such a move would hobble a key European and American ally in an unstable region and would risk slowing the pace of its political and economic reforms.
The commission, the EU executive branch, has been particularly concerned by Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, which makes insulting Turkishness a crime. The law attracted global criticism earlier this year when the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, who was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, was put on trial for telling a Swiss newspaper that more than a million Armenians were massacred by Ottoman Turks during World War I. The case was later dismissed.
No comments:
Post a Comment