Professor sentenced to 1 year in jail for insulting Atatürk
A professor was sentenced on Monday to one year, three months in jail for insulting the nation's founder, M. Kemal Atatürk, in a speech he made in İzmir a year ago.


The professor's sentence was suspended for two years by the court; however, if he commits the same offense one more time in this probation period, his sentence will be carried out. Atilla Yayla, a political science professor at Ankara's Gazi University and head of the Association for Liberal Thinking, was convicted of insulting the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who founded secular Turkey from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, and who is still revered nearly 70 years after his death. His portraits adorn walls in all government offices.

Yayla’s conviction comes as the country -- which aspires to join the European Union -- has been condemned for not doing enough to protect freedom of expression. Several prominent Turkish journalists and writers -- including Nobel Prize in Literature winner Orhan Pamuk -- have been tried under another law that bars insulting “Turkishness” and state institutions.

At the last hearing in July before yesterday’s reprise, Yayla had defended himself, saying to the court: “In that speech, I did not speak about Atatürk or his legacy. I talked about Kemalism. I said, ‘The republic is said to have saved us from the medieval ages; this is controversial.’ And as for the controversial nature of this argument, I said, ‘They [Europeans] will ask us why there are pictures and statues of Atatürk everywhere’.”

Murat Dinçer, Nalan Erkem and Raşit Sarıkaya, legal counsels representing Yayla, participated in yesterday’s trial. Dinçer said in his defense statement that it was not certain that his client had committed the crime of “insulting” Atatürk, and suggested that there was a considerable amount of reasonable doubt since the only written record of his client’s words from that date were reported by Yeni Asır daily correspondent Nuray Kaya, who later said she did not remember verbatim what Yayla had stated. “Other witnesses also said they believed they had listened to an academic speech with no words of insult being included.”

The counsel said they expected the judges to take the side of the Turkey of the 21st century with its humanist, contemporary, rational, modern and enlightened values that hold freedoms dear. The lawyers said they would appeal the verdict.

Yayla was charged after saying in a speech in 2006 that the era of one-party rule under Atatürk, from 1925-45, was not as progressive as the official ideology would have Turks believe. He said it was “regressive in some respects.” He also criticized the statues and pictures of Atatürk, saying Europeans would be baffled to see the portraits of just one man on the walls.

Yayla rejected the charges against him, insisting that he was not insulting Atatürk but questioning his legacy. He said he was also challenging the rigid way in which some followers interpret Atatürk’s principles as opposing liberal reforms and their imposition of strict secular laws such as the ban on headscarves at universities.

“As an academic, I must be free to think, to search and share findings,” Yayla said in a December 2006 interview with The Associated Press. “If Turkey wants to be a civilized country, academics must be able to scientifically criticize and evaluate Atatürk’s ideas.”

Gazi University fired Yayla over the controversy, but he was later reinstated. Yayla has also contributed articles to Today’s Zaman.


29.01.2008
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Today’s Zaman

As with the prosecuted mayors

SIGH

insulting is never a right,but criticism one of the most main