ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's parliament Wednesday amended laws governing freedom of thought and expression as it worked to ease statutes obstructing its path to full membership in the European Union.
The legislation included in the penal code had tested the unity of Turkey's frail left-right government as it works to rescue the country from its worst economic recession since 1945.
Critics complained that the draft legislation had in fact restricted expression further. Parliament Wednesday revised some of the statutes' wording, but it was not immediately clear whether the changes would satisfy liberals.
Article 312 of the penal code had made it an offence to incite people or a crowd to hatred by referring to differences in social class, race, religion, or region. The original article was criticized for being too vague and open to interpretation.
The amended version defines such incitement as a crime only if it places people in a ``dangerous situation.''
Revisions to Article 159, which bars mocking or insulting ''Turkishness,'' the government, armed forces and other branches of the state, lower prison sentences from six years to a maximum of three years.
Dozens of human rights activists, intellectuals and politicians have run afoul of the laws.
The leader of the opposition AK Party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was jailed under Article 312 while serving as Istanbul mayor for a poem he recited at a rally.