National identity law to be changed

Turkey’s government will change a law that was used to prosecute an internationally known author, the justice minister said.

Turkey, which hopes to join the European Union, will soften the law that makes denigrating Turkish identity or insulting the country’s institutions a crime punishable by as much as three years in prison. The EU has said it does not fit within the bloc’s standards of free speech.

Author Orhan Pamuk, who later was awarded the Nobel Prize, became one of the highest-profile Turks snared by the law when he commented on the genocide of Armenians by Ottoman forces in the early 20th century. Turkey says the toll has been inflated and the deaths were the result of civil unrest. The case against Pamuk was dropped after several months.