ALTUĞ TANER AKÇAM v. TURKEY JUDGMENT 17 75. This being so, the Court considers that while the applicant was not prosecuted and convicted of the offence under Article 301, the criminal complaints filed against him by extremists for his views on the Armenian issue had turned into a harassment campaign and obliged him to answer charges under that provision. It can therefore be accepted that, even though the impugned provision has not yet been applied to the applicant’s detriment, the mere fact that in the future an investigation could potentially be brought against him has caused him stress, apprehension and fear of prosecution. This situation has also forced the applicant to modify his conduct by displaying self-restraint in his academic work in order not to risk prosecution under Article 301 (see, mutatis mutandis, Norris, cited above, § 31, and Bowman, cited above). 76. As regards the future risk of prosecution, the Government contended that the applicant was unlikely to suffer prejudice in the future because certain safeguards had been introduced by the amendment of Article 301 which had significantly reduced prosecutions under this provision. In this regard, they attached great importance to the fact that in order to commence prosecutions under Article 301 public prosecutors needed to obtain authorisation from the Ministry of Justice. With reference to statistical data, the Government pointed out that the large majority of these requests were refused by the Ministry of Justice, who applied the principles established in the Court’s jurisprudence in Article 10 cases (see paragraphs 27-29 above). 77. In the Court’s opinion, however, the measures adopted by the Government to prevent largely arbitrary or unjustified prosecutions under Article 301 do not seem to provide sufficient safeguards. It transpires from the statistical data provided by the Government that there are still significant number of investigations commenced by public prosecutors under Article 301 and that the Ministry of Justice grants authorisation in a large number of cases: according to the Government’s contention, between 8 May 2008 and 30 November 2009 the Ministry of Justice received 1,025 requests for authorisation to institute criminal proceedings under Article 301 and granted prior authorisation in 80 cases (approximately 8% of the total requests). The Court notes that the Government did not explain the subject matter or nature of the cases in which the Ministry of Justice granted authorisation. However, the statistical information provided by the applicant indicates that the percentage of prior authorisations granted by the Ministry of Justice is much higher and that these cases mainly concern the prosecution of journalists in freedom of expression cases (see paragraphs 30-33 above). Moreover, as noted by the Human Rights Commissioner of the Council of Europe, a system of prior authorisation by the Ministry of Justice in each individual case is not a lasting solution which can replace the integration of the relevant Convention standards into the Turkish legal system and practice, in order to prevent similar violations of the Convention (see paragraph 48 above).