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The law — Article 301 of the Turkish penal code — has resulted in prosecutions against leading Turkish intellectuals, including the Nobel author Orhan Pamuk and Hrant Dink, an Armenian- Turkish journalist killed last month in Istanbul.

Ali Babacan, a leading member of the governing Justice and Development Party and a minister in the cabinet, said the law was causing harm to Turkey.

Asked if Ankara would abandon the law, he said: “That is not going to happen. Article 301 will stay.” But he said the government was looking at ways to change the way the law was being implemented and said his hope was that it could be altered before elections in November.
Turkish analysts said such a change would most likely entail narrowing the legal definition of what constitutes an insult to Turkishness and amending the law to make it compatible with the European Court of Human Rights. [Read More]