{"id":44625,"date":"2010-08-31T10:11:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-31T10:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/2010\/08\/31\/turkey-plans-to-end-defense-in-freedom-of-speech-cases\/"},"modified":"2010-08-31T10:11:00","modified_gmt":"2010-08-31T10:11:00","slug":"turkey-plans-to-end-defense-in-freedom-of-speech-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2010\/08\/31\/turkey-plans-to-end-defense-in-freedom-of-speech-cases.html","title":{"rendered":"Turkey Plans to End Defense in Freedom of Speech Cases"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Under fire for its
\ncontroversial defense in a high-profile freedom of speech case at the European
\nCourt of Human Rights, Turkey will reportedly stop trying to defend itself in
\nsuch cases and seek friendly settlements instead, reports Hurriyet.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen there
\nis a contradiction with universal or [European court] principles, [Turkey] does
\nnot necessarily give a defense. We are working on this issue to clarify what
\nkind of precautions we can take in order to deal with these cases without going
\nthrough the judicial process,\u201d Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Tuesday in
\na televised interview with the private channel NTV.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Davutoglu was careful
\nnot to confirm or deny the claim made by daily Radikal columnist Murat Yetkin
\nthat the Interior, Foreign and Justice ministries had agreed that Turkey would
\nno longer defend itself in freedom of speech cases. But the foreign minister\u2019s
\nremarks indicated that the country might be considering a change in tactics
\nafter its much-criticized European court defense drawing parallels between
\nNeo-Nazism and the perspectives of murdered journalist Hrant Dink.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

When asked
\nabout Yetkin\u2019s claim, Davutoglu told NTV that he has been personally examining
\nTurkey\u2019s defenses in critical cases since September 2009 and that the country
\nhas asked for a friendly settlement in many of them on his recommendation.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Davutoglu
\nalso said he has asked the country\u2019s permanent representative to the European
\ncourt to supply a classification of the cases opened against Turkey.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Turkey has
\nsome 13,000 cases pending in the European court.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In his
\ncolumn Tuesday, Yetkin wrote that the three ministries decided at a August 25
\nmeeting that Turkey would give executive power to a Friendly Settlement
\nCommission to take action in cases of freedom of speech. This would mean that
\nTurkey would automatically look for an amicable settlement rather than mounting
\na defense in such cases.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Turkey
\nvs. Dink case at the European court is the merger of two civil cases; one was
\nfiled with the European court as a challenge to the journalist being charged
\nwith \u201cinsulting Turkishness\u201d under the infamous Article 301 of the Turkish
\nPenal Code, while the second alleges Turkey failed to adequately protect the
\nlife of Dink, who received repeated death threats before his assassination on
\nJanuary 19, 2007.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Dink
\ncase made headlines earlier this month when Turkey cited in its defense a case
\nagainst a leader of a Nazi organization in Europe as an example supporting its
\nprosecution of Dink. In an early reaction, Davutoglu expressed regret and said,
\n\u201cAs an intellectual and a minister, I could not digest this.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Following
\nthis defense, Turkey asked for a friendly settlement, but the Dink family did
\nnot accept the request.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are
\ntwo issues in the Dink case; one is about protecting the right to life and the
\nother is [about] freedom of expression,\u201d Davutoglu said, adding that by
\noffering the friendly settlement, Turkey has accepted that it has \u201csome
\ndeficiencies on these two issues and agrees to do what is necessary.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Hasip
\nKaplan, a Sirnak deputy from the Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP, told the
\nH\u00fcrriyet Daily News & Economic Review that the government should remove
\nArticle 301 altogether \u2014 along with articles 215, 216 and 220 of the Law to Fight
\nagainst Terror \u2014 in order to make progress in the pending cases.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is in
\nthe government\u2019s hands to make amendments to these articles, which will be the
\ncertain solution,\u201d Kaplan said.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Kamil
\nTekins\u00fcrek, a lawyer following cases on behalf of complainants in the European
\ncourt, said he does not believe the decision \u2014 if it indeed has been made \u2014 was
\nmade sincerely and said it was only done for the Dink case.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEven
\nif Turkey was to look for a friendly settlement in these cases, a majority of
\nthe complainants would not accept because they do not apply to [the European
\ncourt] only for compensation but primarily to prove that Turkey is guilty,\u201d he
\nsaid.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen there is a contradiction with universal or [European court]…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10,11],"tags":[12797,703,14669,10425],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44625"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}