ANKARA, Turkey - A set of long-delayed reforms aimed at bolstering Turkey's chances for membership in the European Union will help reduce widespread torture but do little to expand freedom of expression, human-rights advocates and opposition lawmakers said Thursday. 

The package of constitutional amendments was passed by the 550-member parliament Wednesday despite tough resistance from the ultra-nationalist wing of Turkey's three-party coalition government, whose members said the reforms would encourage Kurdish separatists and other enemies of the state. 

Husnu Ondul, chairman of Turkey's Human Rights Association, said the changes would drastically improve human rights in four Kurdish-dominated provinces where most abuses occur. Those four provinces are governed by emergency laws. 

Under the new law, the maximum number of days detainees accused of so-called terror crimes can be held without trial was reduced to seven. 

Previously, anyone accused - often with scant evidence - of sympathizing with rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, better known as the PKK, or of committing other terror offenses could be held indefinitely without access to a lawyer. As a result, hundreds of prisoners are languishing in jails across the four provinces. 

Emergency rule was introduced throughout the southeast region to help quell a separatist insurgency launched in 1984 by the PKK to establish an independent Kurdish state. 

Rebels declared a unilateral cease-fire after the capture in 1999 of their leader, Abdullah Ocalan, and an atmosphere of relative peace prevails. As the PKK began to scale down its attacks, the Ankara government started phasing out emergency rule throughout the Kurdish regions. 

Turkey became the first predominantly Muslim nation to be added to the EU's list of official candidates in 1999. The country's poor human-rights record and its refusal to grant its estimated 12 million Kurds greater cultural rights are cited among the chief reasons Turkey has so far not been admitted. 

Ondul said in a telephone interview that most of the reported abuses occur during pretrial detention and that reducing the length of that period also will reduce torture. "It's a huge improvement," he said. 

But critics say the reforms do not go far enough. They cited laws against insulting or defaming the Turkish state, which remain on the books even though the latest reforms reduce the maximum jail term from six years to three years. 

"The broad interpretation of the law will continue to result in scores of academics, journalists and politicians being prosecuted and jailed for expressing dissenting views," said Nevzat Toroslu, head of Ankara University's Penal Law Department. 

"The interpretation of the laws is left in the hands of the judges, and as long as the mentality of the judges does not change, there cannot be progress," Toroslu said. 

Amberin Zaman wrote this article for the Los Angeles Times, a Tribune Publishing newspaper