ANKARA, 28 May 2005 — Turkey’s Parliament yesterday approved a package of amendments to a controversial new penal code, put on hold in March amid harsh criticism that it restricts press freedoms and contains technical flaws. The code, which was first adopted in September amid much fanfare and praise, was a key condition that Ankara fulfilled to win a date for accession talks with the European Union at a summit in Brussels in December.
It overhauls Turkey’s 78-year-old penal code borrowed from fascist Italy and has won praise for introducing a more liberal criminal justice system, in particular increasing penalties against human rights abusers and torturers and improving the rights of women and children.
The package adopted yesterday contains improvements to a number of articles concerning the media, but press groups have denounced the changes as inadequate on the grounds that journalists may still end up in prison, even though jail sentences were purged from the press law in another reform last year. The amendments notably scrap provisions that envisaged increased penalties for some offenses if they are committed via the media, such as slander, insult to the president and incitement to war.
