500 Declare Accomplicity in Crime of Thought

Up to 500 people have undersigned a public declaration denouncing themselves as co-offenders of Armenian Turkish bilingual weekly Editor-in-Chief Hrant Dink whose 6 month suspended prison term for “insulting the Turkish identity” under controversial article 301 of the Penal Code was recently upheld by the Court of Cassation.

The “1 signature against 301” campaign launched through "Birgun" newspaper on July 19, in the form of a advertised declaration, is receiving support from all sections of the society demanding the article to be removed from the code for suppressing the freedom of expression.

Those who have signed the advertised declaration and those adding their names to it say “We declare that on behalf of freedom of expression we defend Agos newspaper Editor-in-Chief Hrank Dink's article which was regarded as an offence under article 301 of the new Penal Code and that we participate in this offence.”

It is described as a “civil disobedience” campaign that challenges the law by expanding the scope of ‘offenders’ that now include journalist-writer Ali Bayramoglu, poet Ataol Behramoglu, author Aydin Cubukcu, journalist-author Cuneyt Ulsever, author Elif Shafak, academic Fuat Keyman, former member of parliament Ercan Karakas, journalist-author Kursat Bumin, linguist-author Necmiye Alpay and sociologist Nese Erdilek among others.

Although Dink will not serve the prison sentence that has been ratified by the Appeals Court, the deferment of prison was on condition that he does not commit a "similar offence" within the next five years and the sentence itself criminalized opinions he expressed in his February 2004 column in Agos on "the Armenian Identity".

This week’s campaign comes in the wake of preparations to take Dink’s case to the European Court of Human Rights which coincide with a second investigation launched against the journalist, this time for remarks he made to Reuters news agency in reference to his previous sentence.

Earlier this week, the Istanbul Sisli Public Prosecutor's Office launched the new investigation into Dink again on charges of "insulting the Turkish identity" through an interview he gave to the Reuters and if he is prosecuted and found guilty in the new case, the journalist would be required to serve the jail term for his previous conviction too.

The new investigation relates to a July 14 interview with Reuters where Dink is accused of defending that an Armenian genocide had taken place in history by saying "of course I say this is a genocide. Because the result itself identifies what it is and gives it a name. You can see that a people who have been living on these lands for 4 thousand years have disappeared. This is self explanatory". (EO/KO/II/YE)