Turkey: Charge of 'Insulting Turkishness' Questioned

Court requests review of accusation against two Christians under revised Article 301.

ISTANBUL, June 26 – Twenty months after two Turkish Christians went on trial for allegedly “insulting Turkishness and Islam,” a local criminal court has requested a Justice Ministry review of one of three charges in the case.

In the ninth trial hearing held on Tuesday (June 24), Silivri Criminal Court Judge Mehmet Ali Ozcan ordered a review of the two Christian converts’ alleged violations of the controversial Article 301 of the Turkish penal code.

Accused of spreading Christianity by illegal methods, Hakan Tastan and Turan Topal were charged in October 2006 under Turkey’s Article 301 for denigrating “Turkishness.”

In what critics called “cosmetic” revisions of the restrictive law, the Turkish government amended Article 301 last month, requiring Justice Ministry permission to file such a case. Put into effect on May 8, the changes also redefined the vague offense of “insulting Turkishness” to read “insulting the Turkish nation.”

Regardless of the Justice Ministry decision on the Article 301 charges against Tastan and Topal, the Silivri court will continue its prosecution of the case under the other two charges: reviling Islam (Article 216) and compiling information files on private citizens (Article 135).

Teenage Witnesses Deny Claims

Oddly, both teenage witnesses for the prosecution who testified at Tuesday’s hearing declared that they did not know the defendants and had never even seen them before facing them in the courtroom Tuesday afternoon.

“Neither the defendants nor anyone else has tried to approach me with propaganda about the Christian religion, and no one has given me written or visual materials,” 18-year-old Emin Demirci told the court.

Demirci stated under oath that although he was acquainted with two minor youths who are plaintiffs in the case, he did not know the third adult plaintiff, Fatih Kose.

In his court testimony, Ahmet Kemal Kalyoncu, 19, said the two minor plaintiffs, identified by their first names as Alper and Oguz, were his friends.

Kalyoncu recalled he had once met up with the two youths in Istanbul’s Taksim district, although he could not remember exactly when. Someone whose Turkish language skills indicated he was a foreigner was with them at the time, he said. The unidentified man told him that Alper and Oguz had gone to church and invited him to attend as well, although he said he had declined.

Prosecution lawyers told the judge that their two witnesses had been afraid to state the truth because they were “afraid of their families and friends,” and still under the influence of people involved in missionary activities.

“They are under pressure,” the plaintiff lawyers said, insisting this was the reason for the denials of the two youths, both under 18 years of age at the time of the alleged incidents.

“What kind of pressure are they under?” defendant Tastan asked. “It was the prosecution who called them to testify.”

Gendarme No-Show

Despite the court summons sent in March to the Silivri and Istanbul gendarme headquarters requesting six named gendarme soldiers to testify as prosecution witnesses in the case, there was no response from either military headquarters.

A report on the trial released yesterday on the Turkish news website Bianet noted that the initial charges prepared by the Silivri state prosecutor against Tastan and Topal were based on “a warning telephone call to the gendarme,” claiming that some Christian missionaries were trying to form illegal groups in local schools and making insults against Turkishness, the military and Islam.

Eleven months ago, the Silivri prosecutor had demanded that the court acquit the two Christians, declaring there was “not a single concrete, credible piece of evidence” to support the accusations against them.

But this prosecutor was removed from the case, and two months later the judge hearing the case withdrew over prosecution complaints that he was not impartial.

“Certainly the case will go on for another year or 18 months,” defense lawyer Haydar Polat told Compass today.

Although not under arrest, both of the defendants are being required to attend all the hearings, with the next hearing set for November 4.

“This is becoming very comical,” Tastan told Compass.

Ironically, two key figures pressing the Article 301 charges and promoting sensational media coverage of the drawn-out Silivri trial proceedings are now jailed themselves, unable to attend the last two hearings.

Both ultranationalist lawyer Kemal Kerincsiz and spokesperson Sevgi Erenerol of the bogus Turkish Orthodox Church are accused of playing leading roles in the so-called “Ergenekon gang.” Since mid-January, 47 people have been jailed facing trial for involvement in the alleged crime network, said to have orchestrated numerous killings and violence as part of a nationalist plot to overthrow the Turkish government by the year 2009.

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