Turkish author acquitted of insulting Ataturk

20/12/2006

Turkish author Ipek Calislar was acquitted on Tuesday of insulting the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

(The New Anatolian - 20/12/06; AP, AFP, BBC, FT, International Herald Tribune, AKI, RFE/RL - 19/12/06)

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was the founder of the modern Turkish republic. [Wikipedia]

An Istanbul court on Tuesday (December 19th) acquitted author Ipek Calislar, who was accused of insulting the founder of the modern Turkish republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

The judge's ruling was announced during the second hearing in the trial against Calislar, which opened in October. The charges against the veteran Turkish journalist stemmed from her biography of Ataturk's wife, Latife Usaki, which was published in June and became a bestseller within days.

Based on a witness account, a passage in Calislar's book described an event in the couple's short-lived marriage. Facing an assassination attempt, Ataturk allegedly fled the presidential palace wearing a chador to disguise himself as a woman.

That excerpt was included in the author's interview with Turkish mass-circulation daily Hurriyet in June.

The suit against Calislar was initiated by a reader, Huseyin Tugrul Pekin.

"It is the greatest insult to claim that Mustafa Kemal, whose courage none of us would dare judge, did something like that," he wrote in a letter to the prosecutor, who eventually pressed charges against the author and Necdet Tatlıcan, an editor at Hurriyet.

The two were indicted under a special law passed in 1951, which stipulates jail sentences for anyone who "publicly insults the memory of Ataturk". A number of Turkish writers and journalists reportedly have faced prosecution under this law.

Calislar's acquittal comes amid strong EU pressure for Turkey, which began its accession talks with the Union in October 2005, to change or abolish restrictions on freedom of expression.

Brussels and rights groups have been particularly critical of provisions in Turkey's penal code that have served as a basis for court cases against dozens of Turkish intellectuals, including Orhan Pamuk, this year's winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, and Elif Safak, the country's most famous female writer. Article 301 of the penal code makes it a criminal offence to "insult" the republic, parliament or other state institutions, and stipulates a prison sentence of up to three years for violators.

Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink is the only one to have been given a suspended six-month sentence for "insulting Turkishness". Most of the other trials stemming from provisions in Article 301 have ended either in acquittal or with charges being dropped.