Turkey

Once the centre of the Ottoman Empire, the modern secular republic was established in the 1920s by nationalist leader Kemal Ataturk. The east and south-east of Turkey saw years of civil war in the 1980s and 1990s between Turkish forces and those of the secessionist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in which over 30,000 people died. The PKK, now known as KADEK seeks greater political and cultural rights for the Kurdish community.

Turkey became an official EU candidate country in 1999 and, in line with EU requirements, went on to introduce substantial human rights and economic reforms. The death penalty was abolished, tougher measures were brought in against torture and the penal code was overhauled.

In summer 2004, Kurdish secessionists called off a five-year ceasefire following what they called annihilation operations against their fighters by the Turkish authorities. There have since been clashes between Kurdish fighters and Turkish forces in the south-east. Dozens have died in the renewed violence.

Over the course of the last devade, Turkey has made some immense progress in ensuring the right to freedom of expression, manifested by an important decrease in the numbers of journalists and writers in prison. However, despite the large-scale legislative reforms that have enabled these developments, some extremely contentious and restrictive articles remain in the criminal code.

The country's new criminal code, designed to help Turkey gain membership of the European Union, came into force on 1 June 2005 and imposes new restrictions on journalists. The vagueness of some parts of it allows prosecutions to be broughts as a method of harassment and intimidation. Over 60 journalists and writers have faced criminal suits under Article 301 of the Criminal Code, for example. Article 301 criminalises 'insulting Tukishness,' a crime that can lead to prison sentences between six months and three years.

See English PEN's December 2006 Press Release on Turkey here

For International PEN's analysis of Turkish legislation, please click here

To read Maureen Freely's report on her English PEN mission to Istanbul in January 2008, please click here

Sources: For further information, based on primary research, see the annual reports from Amnesty International (http://www.amnesty.org/), the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (http://www.cpj.org/), Reporters Without Borders (http://www.rsf.fr/) and the International Freedom of Expression eXchange (http://ifex.org/) . See also Human Rights Watch (http://www.hrw.org/). For more general information on Turkey, see the Foreign and Commonwealth Office country profile (www.fco.gov.uk).