Thursday, December 29, 2005



Signs of change in Turkey

Turkey's Foreign Minister has suggested that its law banning insulting the state or military (effectively, lese majeste), currently being used to prosecute more than sixty writers and possibly a Dutch MEP, may be repealed.

Here's hoping.

Such laws have no place on the books of a country which aspires to be called a democracy. And they have no place on the books of a country which aspires to join the EU. It is an underlying principle of democracy that the people must be free to criticise the government in the most robust manner possible. The Turkish law simply doesn't allow this, and that is why it has to go.

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