POLITICS: Adultery Comes Into Turkey’s Date with EU

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Hilmi Toros

ISTANBUL, Sep 20 2004 (IPS) - Turkey may still aspire to speedy talks to join the EU, but its move to make adultery a crime is in the way.

Turkey may still aspire to speedy talks to join the EU, but its move to make adultery a crime is in the way.

The unexpected move by the ruling Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) comes ahead of a critical European Commission report on Turkey’s membership due Oct. 6.

Turkey’s case for joining the European Union (EU) had improved with the publication of a report earlier this month setting out the advantages this would bring to the bloc. But the new move raises questions over conforming to EU standards.

Does the ruling party in Turkey have a ‘hidden agenda’ to introduce Islamic values as it also accepts EU principles? Is Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan a fundamentalist wolf in sheep’s clothing?

Specifically, if adultery is a sin, should it also be a crime? Yes, says the ruling Turkish party. No, say the EU and liberal and women’s groups within Turkey.

But fearing a backlash from its religious rank and file, the government withdrew the entire penal code reform bill Thursday. The bill had been the centrepiece of EU demands.

The EU said the withdrawal would hurt Turkey’s chances of a favourable report card in the make-or-break Oct.6 assessment, and give fuel to EU conservatives opposed to Turkey’s membership.

Former French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing who headed the panel to draw up a new EU Constitution has opposed Turkey’s entry on geographic and cultural grounds. German opposition leader Angela Merkel wrote to EU heads of government recently to propose a "privileged relationship" with Turkey instead of full membership.

Erdogan cited the "sensitivity of the people" to say that the EU cannot dictate Turkish laws. "The European Union is not indispensable for us," he announced, adding that Turkey has already met EU criteria for accession talks. The Istanbul stock exchange index fell 4 percent after Erdogan’s comments.

"It is Turkey that wants to join EU, not us wanting join Turkey," EU enlargement commissioner Günter Verhaugen shot back. He said the central issue is whether Turkey meets EU standards. None of the 25 EU members makes adultery a crime.

Gone for now are reforms to the 78-year-old penal code that dates to the fascist Italian era. The reforms had been praised as among the most modern in Europe. They had sought to criminalise rape within marriage, abolish leniency for rapists who marry their victims, outlaw discrimination on religious, ethnic and gender grounds as well as sexual harassment at work, make torture illegal, and introduce heavy penalties for environmental destruction.

The ruling party says the penal reform bill will be re-introduced – but without indicating whether it will drop the adultery clause. Verhaugen said Sunday that accession talks with Turkey cannot begin unless penal reforms are passed. EU leaders are due to take a decision on negotiations with Turkey at their summit in December.

"The behaviour of the AKP leadership and some of its conservative deputies regarding the penal code reform was nothing short of political adultery," says Yusuf Kanli, chief editor of The Turkish Daily News. Kanli says he now considers the AKP "an Islamist party."

Erdogan says criminalising adultery would strengthen family values and protect women. "The family unit is the basis of our culture," he said. "If either parent cheats on his or her spouse, and if the other makes a complaint, the judiciary will take over….we are protecting the rights of the cheated wives." He claimed more than 80 percent support from women.

But the contemplated adultery clause would have exempted men with long established relationships – a move seen as favouring men with multiple marriages.

"There are plenty of men around Mr. Erdogan openly admitting to having more than one wife because Islam allows such practices – MPs, senior government officials, party officials, etc.," says columnist Burak Bekdil. "Mr. Erdogan’s thinking on adultery is yet another example that reveals his zigzagging between the liberal-reformist in him and the one-time Islamic hardliner. Issues such as adultery easily dig up the material Mr. Erdogan’s party is made up of."

Women’s groups claim that the bill intended to protect them would work against them, because women in the heartland would be unlikely to complain against their husbands for fear of violence, or at least of losing income if their husbands land in jail.

"Such a law will not help save marriages…on the contrary it will ruin them," says Senal Saruhan, a women’s rights advocate. "It’s a backward approach…that will allow the state to intervene in our private lives."

Adultery was a criminal offence in Turkey until 1997 when a high court knocked it down on grounds that it discriminated against women by allowing men several adulterous affairs before they could be charged while women could face prosecution for only one. Women could be given three-year jail terms, men three months.

After sweeping to power with more than 70 percent of MPs in 2002, the AKP pursued EU membership, but had also attempted changes in line with its Islamic roots such as lifting the ban on headscarves at universities and increasing the duration of Koran courses. These moves were all dropped in the face of sharp protests from the secular establishment.