Turkey Drops Adultery Proposals

[Warsai]

(AP) Turkey's government backed off its plan to outlaw adultery after criticism within the European Union, strident protests from opposition politicians and a march on parliament Tuesday by hundreds of outraged Turkish women.

Government leaders had proposed an adultery ban as part of a major overhaul of the mostly Muslim country's 78-year-old penal code, which comes as the 25 EU states prepare to decide by end of the year whether to begin talks on Turkey's appeal for membership.

The government has been hoping to tack the adultery ban onto the draft penal code, apparently to appease Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's conservative and devoutly Islamic base.

But after meeting with a leader of Turkey's opposition Tuesday, Justice Minister Cemil Cicek said that only measures agreed on by the governing and opposition parties would be brought to the floor -- a move certain to doom the proposal.

Ali Topuz, a senior lawmaker from the opposition Republican People's Party, made it clear that there would be no consensus. "We're strongly against the proposal on adultery, and so it will not come to the floor," Topuz told private CNN-Turk television.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/...in643398.shtml

[Clint]

So, if you steal a watch you will get your hand chopped off but if you steal a spouse, more power to ya.