Glasnost in the Air.(Turkey's human rights reforms)(Editorial)

Bayram Altinc, who lives in Kazanci, southeastern Turkey, was 15 when he nearly landed in prison for saying he's a Kurd. At school last December he was summoned to lead his classmates in their daily pledge of allegiance to the Turkish Republic. Instead of ending with the words, "How happy is he who calls himself a Turk," the boy substituted "Kurd" for "Turk." Furious teachers took him to the police station, where criminal charges were filed against him under Turkey's notorious Article 312, which punishes those who "threaten the unity of the State" with up to five years behind bars. "Just one wrong word, and your life can be ruined," says Altinc's father, Memduh, a stocky farmer. "I am afraid of Turkish law."

Could that be changing? As Turkey freshens its bid for entry into the European Union, the new government is this week pushing through an ambitious package of reforms that recognizes the basic human right to freedom of speech for the first time in the country's history. Sensing the winds of this potential glasnost, Turkish Human Rights Association lawyers threatened to take the Altinc case to the European Court of Human Rights. Last month a three-judge State Security Court in Turkey acquitted Altinc.

If enforced, the reforms could turn Turkey into the "functional democracy" it must be under EU rules to gain membership. But the reforms--which the EU says require "full implementation"--face stiff opposition from Turkey's ultraconservative judicial and military establishments, which see free speech as a Pandora's box that could lead to religious extremism and Kurdish separatism. Last week a key part of the pro-European government's reform package--the abolition of the Penal Code's catch-all Article 8, which punishes "incitement and propaganda"--was blocked by President (and former judge) Ahmet Necet Sezer. Parliament is expected to overturn his veto this week. But the president's move was a clear sign of the judiciary's resistance to liberalization. "Changing the laws may be easy," reformist Justice Minister Cemil Celik said last week. "A change of mentality won't happen so fast. It can't be done overnight."

Apparently not. Late last month a group of Istanbul-based actors organized a Cultural Bridge theater festival in the eastern Turkish city of Hakkari. But when he left the ...