Amnesty International calls on Turkey to 'remove shackles on freedom'

Amnesty International said in a report released on Wednesday that a package of reforms before Turkey's Parliament risks becoming a missed opportunity to bring the country's laws in line with international human rights standards and leaves people vulnerable to a range of abuses including jail time for expressing opinions. The human rights group's report, titled "Turkey: Decriminalize dissent: Time to deliver on the right to freedom of expression," analyses the current law and practice related to the 10 most problematic articles threatening freedom of expression under the Turkish legal system. Amnesty International examined a number of cases in Turkey in which it says freedom of expression was violated, including that of Temel Demirer, who was prosecuted for saying that Hrant Dink had been killed because he was Armenian and for making allegations about the state's role in his killing; that of conscientious objector Halil Savda, who has been convicted on multiple occasions for supporting publicly the right to conscientious objection and accused of "alienating the public from military service"; and that of 62-year-old Sultani Acıbuca, a member of a group of mothers who have lost their sons or seen them imprisoned as part of the conflict between the Turkish state and the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), who was convicted of being a member of a terrorist organization for calling for peace and an end to the conflict. The report criticizes attacks on freedom of expression in Turkey and says in order to prevent these abuses from continuing, Turkey must overhaul its inadequate constitutional protection of the right to freedom of expression and related provisions within the Penal Code (TCK) and the Anti-Terrorism Law (TMK). Stating that a succession of legislative reform packages have failed to bring about the fundamental change required, the report says the third and most recent "judicial package," adopted in July 2012, made some limited improvements, most notably regarding offences used to prosecute journalists publishing articles about ongoing criminal investigations and prosecutions.