At least the ambiguous `abasement` word had to be erased from the entire article and replaced with the word `insult` which has a much clearer meaning. Such a verbal improvement could have been considered as a `step in the right direction` if not a reform. But, what the AKP is doing now is not a reform at all. We are witnessing an attempt by the AKP to portray a reformist image without doing anything at all

BY YUSUF KANLI
The text was cleared by the parliamentary justice commission last week after a 13-hour-long heated debate between parliamentarians that followed a "democratic resistance" by a group of newsmen, photo-reporters and cameramen against the police director of Parliament trying to kick them out of the commission`s meeting room.
This event was important and indeed unveiled the "democracy understanding" of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The commission was to discuss presumably how to restrict the scope of a law considered by the opponents as a "chain on free thought," while the police was trying to prevent journalists from covering the debates and providing the nation with news on how such a change was achieved. But the AKP-deputy chairperson of the commission was so democratic that he did not want the media to be the witness of debates on such an important development and asked the police to kick them out of the commission room.
Free speech is a must in any democracy, and without democracy there cannot be free speech. Thus, compromising free speech for the sake of democracy is, to say the least, a fundamental contradiction with the definition of democracy.
Back on Jan. 9, commenting in this column on the preparations of the AKP to make some amendments to the penal code`s contentious Article 301 that regulates penalties for "abasing Turkishness," we wrote that, "As it stands within the current AKP proposal for its amendment, the contentious Article 301 will remain as a chain on free thought... What`s proposed is not reform. What we are seeing is deception in action!"
Deception in action
Furthermore, we wrote that "the cunning AKP thinks that with the amendment - expected to be proposed to Parliament this week - it will be able to tell Europe and Turkish intellectuals `Look, we have abided by our word and amended Article 301 as we promised` on the one hand, while at the same time turning to conservative circles in society to say `Look, we have defied all pressure and kept `abasing the Turkish nation` as a serious crime, punishable with permission of the justice minister... We did not bow to pressure!`. If the government hopes to leave behind its 301-related headaches with some cosmetic changes to the law, what it has offered so far won`t help at all."
What further changes can be seen in the text by the time it clears Parliament this week cannot be estimated for now. Yet, according to the text cleared by Parliament`s justice commission after a 13-hour-long debate, the AKP has given up the idea of requiring presidential approval for launching a court case against anyone under Article 301, but instead wants the justice minister be empowered to decide whether or not prosecutors can launch an inquiry against anyone under the same article. The highest penalty a court can decide against anyone under the article will be lowered from three years to two, and there won`t be an additional one-third increase in the prison sentence if the "crime" was committed by a Turk abroad.
Now, there are a total of 527 cases under Article 301 at Turkish courts. Since 2003, a total of 745 people were sentenced under that article. The requirement to seek the justice minister`s approval to launch a probe under that article may help decrease the number of cases at courts, however, with the justice minister having such power, how we will be able to talk about judicial independence or the principle of the separation of powers are perhaps questions irrelevant for now to focus on. At least we have saved the presidency by not giving it such power!
But, was there anything worth being considered an "improvement" in the text accepted by the commission and the current article? "Abasing Turkishness" has become "abasing the Turkish nation." What an achievement? Anyhow, the Court of Appeals had ruled that "abasing Turkishness" was a vague term and should be understood as "abasing the Turkish nation."
But that was not all. The new text says the "abasing the Republic" term in the current law will be amended to "abasing the State of the Turkish Republic." Was it not clear, after all, that the term "republic" was the "Turkish republic"? Can such a "big change" be considered a revolutionary enhancement of free speech in this country?
Of course we would prefer to see this contentious article erased from the penal code altogether and have no such obsessive crime in this country, but at least, is it really so difficult to erase the ambiguous "abasement" word from the entire article and replace it with the word "insult" which I believe has a much clearer meaning? Such a verbal improvement could have been considered as a "step in the right direction" if not a reform. But, what the AKP is doing now is not a reform at all. We are witnessing an attempt by the AKP to portray a reformist image without doing anything at all.

(Yusuf Kanly can be contacted at [email protected] or [email protected])