NOVELIST CLEARED OF "INSULTING TURKISHNESS"

RTE.ie, Ireland
22 September 2006

Bestselling Turkish novelist Elif Shafak was yesterday acquitted
of the charges of "insulting Turkishness" brought against her under
Article 301 of Turkish law.

The charges were dropped at the prosecutor’s request on the first
day of her trial.

Shafak was accused of denigrating the national identity in her novel,
‘The Bastard of Istanbul’.

The charges stem from a part of the book in which a character who
is an ethnic Armenian says that "Turkish butchers" massacred his
ancestors in a 1915 "genocide".

Shafak, who gave birth on Saturday did not attend the trial.

She could have received a three-year jail sentence as a result in a
case that was being monitored by the European Union as a benchmark
for Turkey’s human rights record.

After the decision, EU spokeswoman Krisztina Nagy warned: "The fact
remains that [Turkey’s courts] established a restrictive interpretation
of article 301 of the penal code which is not in line with the European
Court of Human Rights and European standards of freedom of expression."

A report on Turkey’s progress toward membership is due to be published
on 8 November.