He was charged with insulting an institution of the Republic of Turkey by chief public prosecutor's office in Bakırköy. This prosecution was struck out by the dismissal of Mehmet Ali Şahin, then the minister of justice. Other high-profile incidents In December 2005 Joost Lagendijk, a member of the Dutch GreenLeft party and the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, chairman of the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee, and a staunch supporter of Turkish EU membership, visited Turkey to attend the trial against Orhan Pamuk. In his speech he commented on the Şemdinli incident and criticized the Turkish military for seeking to maintain its political influence through the continuous guerrilla war with the PKK. Greater Jurists Union (), the same group that filed a complaint against Orhan Pamuk, filed charges against Joost Lagendijk for violating Article 301 by insulting the Turkish army. The prosecutor, however, declined to prosecute, referring to the Turkish constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights, as well as a judgement by the European Court of Human Rights concerning the interpretation of that Convention. Members of the Strong Turkey Party organized a campaign of civil disobedience against the article called Try me too 301 (). 301 members of the party knowingly violated the article 301 and filed complaints against themselves. The prosecutor refused to file charges. Criticism and impact of the article In its short life the article has been heavily criticized, both in Turkey and outside. A criticism heard in Turkey, and also voiced by some outside, is that it has turned into a tool of the nationalist "old guard", who, so is claimed, use it to press charges against people of international renown, not to stifle dissenting opinions but with the aim of thwarting the admission process to the EU. Novelist Elif Şafak claims the Article has a chilling effect on free expression, notwithstanding its fourth clause. It is too early to tell how this is going to be interpreted in cassation (last-instance review) by the Court of Appeals. Turkey accepts the European Court of Human Rights' decisions as overriding higher court decision, and ratified international treaties as overriding national law. Amnesty International states that "Article 301 poses a direct threat to freedom of expression, as enshrined in Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and in Article 10 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental