The FINANCIAL — ISTANBUL, a senior member of the European Parliament urged Turkey on February 11 to amend a much-criticised law restricting freedom of speech, warning that European Union patience is "running out".
Joost Lagendijk, co-chairman of a joint Turkey-EU parliamentary commission, made the appeal outside an Istanbul court where he attended the third hearing of the trial of 19 suspects for the 2007 murder of ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, who had been convicted under the controversial law.
"The EU's patience is running out… What we expect from Turkish leaders is not nice declarations but realistic moves," he said.
Article 301 of the penal code provides up to four years in jail for "insulting Turkishness".
It has been used mainly against people contesting the official line on the World War I Ottoman massacres of Armenians, which, much to Turkey's ire, many countries have recognised as genocide.
The provision has landed dozens of intellectuals, including 2006 Nobel literature laureate Orhan Pamuk, in court. Some of them, like Dink, were convicted but saw their sentences suspended.
Officials said last month that a draft amendment was ready to be presented to parliament, but action remains to be taken as the government is focused on a highly controversial reform abolishing a ban on the Islamic headscarf in universities.
Lagendijk urged the Turkish authorities to also uncover the "guys behind the scene" in Dink's murder.
Dink, hated by Turkish nationalists for saying the Armenian massacres were genocide, was shot dead on January 19, 2007, outside his office in central Istanbul.
The self-confessed 17-year-old assassin and 18 alleged associates went on trial last year, but lawyers for Dink's family argue that the true instigators of the assassination remain at large and enjoy the protection of some members of the security forces.
"If the case is not handled in a proper way, it will leave a stain, a dirty spot on Turkey's image in Europe," Lagendijk said.
About 1,000 people demonstrated before the hearing, brandishing banners that read "For Hrant, for justice".
The trial is held behind closed doors because the alleged gunman is a minor. Lagendijk and several Turkish lawmakers attended the hearing with special permission from the judge.
Fourteen people, including retired army officers, were arrested last month as part of a probe into an ultra-nationalist group that reportedly plotted to kill Pamuk and might also have been involved in Dink's murder.
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