Protecting Turkishness continues

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

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In response to Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, deputy Erkan Ekçay’s parliamentary question, Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Şahin said since May 8 last year when the ministry was given authority to approve or reject cases linked to Article 301 of the penal code, courts have suspended 301 trials, forwarding them to the ministry for reassessment. "That is why there are so many applications," he said, according to the Anatolia news agency.

The infamous Article 301 bans any statement deemed insulting to state institutions and Turkishness.

Turkey’s Nobel Literature Prize winner Orhan Pamuk, writer Elif Şafak, and journalists İsmet Berkant and Hrant Dink were among those who were prosecuted under Article 301. Dink was found guilty, given a suspended sentence and became the center of nationalist anger. He was assassinated in 2007 by a nationalist teenager.

Charges against Berkant, Pamuk and Şafak were dismissed. There have been complaints that high-profile cases are being dismissed while the rest are being prosecuted. Pamuk’s prosecution attracted significant criticism from the European Union, which Turkey is trying to join.Despite the repeated calls for Article 301’s annulment, the government opted to amend the article, allowing the Justice Ministry the right to decide which Article 301 cases will be prosecuted.