EU urges Turkey to revise its constitution

PanARMENIAN.Net - The EU has called on Turkey to "update" its constitution in the wake of Turkey's constitutional court's decision to reject an attempt to ban the country's ruling party.



Speaking late on 15 September, after a biannual meeting with Turkey's foreign minister, Olli Rehn, the European enlargement commissioner, said that Turkey's political elite should seize on the rare moment of political stability "to update its constitution to reflect the country and society it has become and to consolidate rights and freedoms for its citizens".



The court ruled, very narrowly, in late July that the governing Justice and Development (AK) party had not breached its constitutional obligation to maintain Turkey's secular order, a ruling that has eased some of Turkey's political tensions.



Turkey's foreign minister, Ali Babacan, did not comment on Rehn's call, but emphasized that Turkey has already made numerous legal changes in order to comply with EU rules and, in particular, changes to the notorious Article 301 of its penal code.



The article, which made it a crime to "insult Turkishness", had been invoked in numerous cases brought against public intellectuals who raised questions about the culpability of Turks in what Armenians and a growing number of countries describe as the Genocide of ethnic Armenians in the latter years of the Ottoman Empire. The article has not been repealed, but has been modified to replace "Turkishness" with "the Turkish nation" and it can now only be invoked with the permission of the justice minister, European Voice reports.



Article 301 has been used to bring charges against Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk, writer Elif Shafak, publisher Ragıp Zarakolu and Armenian-Turkish journalist, Agos newspaper editor Hrant Dink, who was assassinated in January 2007.