The United States accused Turkey of limiting freedom of expression

PanARMENIAN.Net - US Department of State has criticized Turkish government in its annual human rights report. According to the report "Individuals could not criticize the state or government publicly without fear of reprisal, and the government continued to restrict expression by individuals sympathetic to some religious, political, and Kurdish nationalist or cultural viewpoints. Active debates on human rights and government policies continued, particularly on issues relating to the country's EU membership process, the role of the military, Islam, political Islam, the question of Turks of Kurdish and other ethnic or religious origins as "minorities," and the history of the Turkish-Armenian conflict at the end of the Ottoman Empire. However, persons who wrote or spoke out on such topics, particularly on the Armenian issue, risked prosecution. The TPA reported that serious restrictions on freedom of expression continued despite legal reforms related to the country's EU candidacy.



According to the Turkish government, there were no journalists held on speech violations during the year. However, the TPA reported there were 21 journalists in jail for the content of their reporting, including Kurdish media members and those accused of being leftist dissidents."



It is mentioned in the report "in October 2008 the Ministry of Justice approved continuance of the case against publisher and writer Temel Demirer under Article 301. Demirer had been charged for a statement he made after Dink's killing, calling for the recognition of the tragic events of 1915 as "genocide."

The case against Atilla Tuygan for translating two books dealing with Turkish-Armenian relations continued at year's end. The case was opened in May 2007 after the books' publisher, Ragip Zarakolu, was acquitted, and the court ruled that Tuygan should be tried instead. In a second case, Raqip Zarakolu was convicted on June 19 and sentenced to five months in prison for publishing The Truth Will Set Us Free, a book describing the experience of the author's grandmother during the tragic events of 1915. The court postponed the imposition of punishment, and Zarakolu and his lawyer appealed the verdict," the official website of US Department of State reports.