NOVELIST TRIED FOR INSULTING ‘TURKISHNESS’

UPI
September 17, 2006 Sunday 1:04 PM EST

A Turkish female novelist who is nine months pregnant goes on trial in
Istanbul this week accused of insulting "Turkishness" in a best-selling
novel.

Elif Shafak, 34, who is expected to give birth any day, will be
tried because a character in "The Bastard of Istanbul" describes the
massacres of Armenians in the late Ottoman Empire as "genocide."

Most of the world accepts that description of the mass killings. But
the Turkish government claims the deaths of hundreds of thousands
of Armenians from 1915-1917 were a result of inter-ethnic strife,
disease and famine.

While other Turks have faced charges for referring to the massacre
as genocide, Shafak is the first to be prosecuted for words spoken
by a fictional character, The Times of London reports.

"Shafak’s novel is not a work of literature. It is Armenian
propaganda," said lawyer Kemal Kerincsiz of the ultranationalist
Union of Jurists, which initiated the case.

Shafak said she was determined to face the charges, despite her
pregnancy.