By Vincent Boland in Ankara
Published: April 1 2005 03:00 | Last updated: April 1 2005 03:00
Turkey yesterday delayed the introduction of reforms aimed at greater protection of human and civil rights in a surprise move that the European Union said it would be monitoring closely.
The government said the two-month delay would allow revisions to the new penal code aimed at striking a better balance between individual rights and protection of the state. It said the postponement was for “technical reasons” and did not reflect any lessening of its commitment to the reforms to the country’s 79-year-old penal code.
The new code is considered central to Turkey’s desire to improve its democratic credentials and human rights record and was requested by the EU ahead of membership talks with the bloc, which are slated to begin on October 3.
European Commission officials have recently complained that the pace of reform in Turkey has slipped this year, a claim the government rejects.
The postponement came in response to growing complaints in recent days from civil rights groups and media organisations that some of the new measures on freedom of expression and of the press were more restrictive than the ones they replaced. The code was due to come into force today; parliament voted yesterday to put the date back to June 1.
Krisztina Nagy, a spokeswoman for Olli Rehn, EU enlargement commissioner, said yesterday that the Commission was “assessing” the decision and was seeking more information. “We are watching this closely,” she said, declining to comment further.
Abdullah Gul, foreign minister, said the delay would enable criticisms to be taken on board. “We are not retreating from our word or agreements,” he said.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, prime minister, made the abrupt announcement of the postponement during a televised news conference on a trip to Morocco.
There were signs of disagreement within the government over the move.
Cemil Cicek, justice minister, told NTV Turkish television that he opposed the delay and attacked critics of the new code for not coming forward earlier.
Turkey’s press council, which is leading the campaign to get the measures related to freedom of expression changed, said journalists were at increased risk of imprisonment under the revised code if they criticised state institutions or published classified information.
Lawyers and civil rights groups said that in general the new code was a good first step towards a more progressive criminal justice system. But the government was accused of rushing the measures through parliament last autumn without sufficient consultation.
* Turkey’s economy in 2004 grew at its highest rate in nearly 40 years and was one of the fastest-growing in the world, according to official figures released yesterday.
Gross domestic product expanded by 8.9 per cent, well ahead of official and independent forecasts, and gross national product expanded by 9.9 per cent, the state statistics institute said.
Economists said political stability and structural reform were behind the rapid economic expansion.
Growth was 7.9 per cent in 2002 and 5.8 per cent in 2003.
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