effect on free speech. Novelist Orhan Pamuk, at the time a Nobel Prize candidate, was prosecuted under Article 301 for discussing the Armenian genocide; Pamuk subsequently won the prize. * Perihan Mağden, a columnist for the newspaper Radikal, was tried under the article for provocation, and acquitted on July 27, 2006; Mağden had broached the topic of conscientious objection to mandatory military service as an abuse of human rights. The case of the Academics for Peace is also relevant: on January 14, 2016, 27 academics were detained for interrogations after having signed a petition with more than other 1.000 people asking for Peace in the South- East of the country, where there are ongoing violent clashes between the Turkish Army and the PKK. The academics accused the government of breaching international law. An investigation started upon those academics under charges of “terrorism propaganda”, “incitement to hatred and enmity” and for “insulting the State” under Article No. 301 of the Turkish Criminal Code. Article 312 Article 312 of the criminal code imposes three-year prison sentences for incitement to commit an offence and incitement to religious or racial hatred. In 1999 the mayor of Istanbul and current president Recep Tayyip Erdogan was sentenced to 10 months' imprisonment under Article 312 for reading a few lines from a poem that had been authorized by the Ministry of Education for use in schools, and consequently had to resign. In 2000 the chairman of the Human Rights Association, Akin Birdal, was imprisoned under Article 312 for a speech in which he called for "peace and understanding" between Kurds and Turks, and thereafter forced to resign, as the Law on Associations forbids persons who breach this and several other laws from serving as association officials. On February 6, 2002, a "mini-democracy package" was voted by Parliament, altering wording of Art. 312. Under the revised text, incitement can only be punished if it presents "a possible threat to public order." The package also reduced the prison sentences for Article 159 of the criminal code from a maximum of six years to three years. None of the other laws had been amended or repealed as of 2002. Other Defamation and libel remain criminal charges in Turkey (Article 125 of the Penal Code). They often result in fines and jail terms. Bianet counted 10 journalists convicted of defamation, blasphemy or incitement to hatred in 2014. Article 216 of the