TURKEY: After being twice delayed, Turkey's first new criminal code in nearly 80 years goes into effect today in what Ankara hopes will be a major step towards opening accession proceedings with the European Union this October.
Legal experts see the document as an improvement on its 1926 predecessor, heavily indebted to late-19th-century Italian laws.
Turkish women's rights activists have expressed overall satisfaction with new articles criminalising sexual harassment, virginity tests and rape within marriage.
The code also drops articles prescribing shorter sentences for so-called honour killings. Every year, scores if not hundreds of Turkish women are murdered by their families for transgressing traditional codes of behaviour.
In line with their new policy of zero tolerance of torture, parliamentarians have also increased the maximum torture penalty from eight to 12 years.
The new criminal code has been dogged by controversy since last autumn, when plans to criminalise adultery were dropped amidst international outcry.
In recent days government efforts to reduce penalties for illegal religious courses have sparked a furious debate inside Turkey, fiercely attached to its secular identity.
The scandal has served only to mask far more serious shortcomings in articles dealing with freedom of expression.
In its 2004 report on press freedoms, Journalists without Frontiers put Turkey in 117th place out of 169 countries, on a par with Rwanda.
"Next year we'll be fighting it out with Cuba, North Korea and China for last place," says Derya Sazak, a columnist for the centrist daily Milliyet.
Journalists still face prison sentences for reporting on anything from ongoing criminal investigations to "insult".
Not only has a notorious article from the former code criminalising acts that "belittle" state institutions been transferred almost verbatim into today's version, critics say, entirely new restrictions have been introduced.
Foremost is Article 305, which prescribes up to 10 years in prison for Turks or foreigners acting "against the fundamental national interest", a vague term that could include advocating the withdrawal of Turkish troops from Cyprus or describing 1915 Armenian massacres as genocide.