CHARGE OF ‘INSULTING TURKISHNESS’ QUESTIONED

Compass Direct News : TURKEY - CHARGE OF ‘INSULTING TURKISHNESS’ QUESTIONED

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. 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.” 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 and compiling information files on private citizens. Oddly, both teenage witnesses for the prosecution testified that they did not know the defendants and had never even seen them before facing them in the courtroom on Tuesday. “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.