EUROPE: Turkey ‘Slowing Down’ On Its Way

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

David Cronin

BRUSSELS, Mar 4 2008 (IPS) - Reforms allowing freedom of expression in Turkey are “badly overdue”, the European Commission has warned.

Although talks on Turkey’s bid to join the European Union opened more than two years ago, the EU official overseeing those negotiations said Mar. 3 that there has been a “slowdown” in the rate of progress being made by Ankara in respecting political liberties.

Olli Rehn, the commissioner for EU enlargement, added that he expected Turkey to revise the controversial Article 301 of its penal code so that it respects the European Convention on Human Rights.

Entering into effect in 2005, this clause makes it an offence to insult ‘Turkishness’. Among those who have been prosecuted under the law are the Nobel-winning writer Orhan Pamuk. The novelist had charges brought against him – though subsequently dropped – over a newspaper interview in which he broached a subject that is still taboo in Turkey: the genocide perpetrated against Armenians by Ottoman forces in the early 20th century.

One of the major tasks facing the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party this year will be the drawing up of a new constitution.

Rehn argued that “fundamental freedom must be at the heart of constitutional reform.” While he stated that he has not yet seen a draft of the proposed new constitution, Rehn said that information available to him indicated that it will curb the powers of the president in areas such as education and the judiciary and that it will review provisions that restrict the rights of ethnic and religious minorities in the largely Muslim country.

“If this is the case, it is clear that the constitutional reform carries many opportunities for strengthening fundamental freedoms, cultural rights and the independence of the judiciary,” he said.

Rehn was speaking at a conference at the European Parliament dedicated to the plight of the Kurds, who at 15 million comprise about one-fifth of the Turkish population.

While the conference was mainly dedicated to the situation facing Kurds within Turkey, Rehn referred to the recent eight days of clashes between Turkish forces and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq.

As well as urging Turkey to respect Iraq’s territorial integrity, Rehn urged the Ankara government to refrain from “disproportionate military action”.

Introduced in 1982, Turkey’s constitution does not recognise any national or ethnic description apart from Turkish.

Four decades of conflict between Kurdish guerrilla forces and the government have claimed some 40,000 lives. The fighting was most intense in the 1980s and 1990s, when Turkey was accused of pursuing a scorched earth policy that drove millions of Kurdish civilians in the country’s south-east from their homes.

In 2005, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan confessed that “certain errors and injustices” had occurred in Turkey’s military offensive during the 1980s. This was the first time since 1982 that a Turkish premier had spoken of a “Kurdish problem”.

Yet despite taking such steps as easing restrictions on broadcasting in the Kurdish language, the government remains reluctant to fully address the continuing discrimination against Kurds. The AK Party declined an invitation to take part in the Brussels conference this week.

Serap Yazici, professor of law at Bilgi University in Istanbul, noted that the constitution now in force was prepared by the leadership of a 1980 military coup. “Public opinion since 1982 has been wanting a more liberal and less authoritarian text to be presented,” she said. “This really is indispensable.”

The draft new constitution, she said, underlines the importance of individual liberty and presents diversity “as a sort of wealth”. Among the “innovations” in the new constitution will be “fair treatment for all by the judicial system,” she added.

But Serafettin Elci, president of the Kurdish People’s Democracy Party (HADEP), complained that the draft maintains an anti-Kurdish bias.

For example, the draft stipulates that Turkish will be the official language for education. “Obviously the whole objective of this is to prevent education in Kurdish,” said Elci. “Education in one’s mother tongue should be guaranteed.”

Like HADEP, the Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), has faced official efforts to ban it in recent years. In December, the Turkish constitutional court ruled that there were no grounds on which to prevent the DTP from contesting elections.

Ahmet Türk, the DTP’s parliamentary leader, said that there is still a process of “dehumanisation” against Kurds in Turkey.

This was evident, he claimed, in Turkish reports about casualties inflicted in clashes against Kurdish guerrillas stationed across the border in northern Iraq. “On the television news, they were talking about the number of militants killed today, as if it was a tally for hunting or something,” he said. “I don’t consider that acceptable.”

Cengiz Candar, a journalist who has written for several Turkish newspapers, suggested that Turkey could learn from the experience of other European countries. Spain’s 1978 constitution, he noted, recognises that languages other than Spanish can have official status in the country’s ‘autonomous’ regions such as Catalonia and the Basque Country.

“If Turkey wants to make progress towards accession to the European Union, it is important that it gets away from all prohibitions and a fear of diversity,” said Candar. “This is why we should learn from this kind of example and try to move forward.”