Author: Felekian Ara

NOVELIST ON TRIAL FOR THE ‘CRIMES’ OF HER CHARACTERS
by Suna Erdem

The Times (London)
September 19, 2006, Tuesday

Elif Shafak is the latest writer to be charged with "insulting
Turkishness". They want to control art, she tells Suna Erdem.

UNCLE DIKRAN, Grandma Shushan and Auntie Zeliha may be figments of
the novelist Elif Shafak’s imagination but they will all be in the
dock this week in a bizarre trial that has become a test for Turkey’s
European ambitions and commitment to freedom of speech.

Mrs Shafak, 34, has been charged under Article 301 of the penal code
with "insulting Turkishness" through the fictional dialogue in her
bestselling novel The Bastard of Istanbul, about the intertwined
history of a Turkish and an Armenian-American family.

The European Union, with which Turkey began accession talks last
year, has been a strong critic of the law and is expected to condemn
curbs on freedom of expression in a report on October 24. Turkey’s
parliament is holding an emergency meeting this week on further
EU-related legal reform, but the Government has so far failed to
act on Article 301 -which was also used to put Orhan Pamuk, the
country’s most famous novelist, on trial -pointing out that cases
end in acquittal anyway. That is not the point, Mrs Shafak says.

"I think the biggest worry regarding Article 301 is not that it puts
people in prison but it silences them." Even the briefest of Article
301 court cases has proved a platform for harassment of top writers
but for Mrs Shafak it is even worse. She gave birth to a baby girl
last Saturday and, since the court refused her request for the hearing
to be postponed, she must now either excuse herself through a medical
report or leave a five-day-old baby to go to court on Thursday.

Charging fictional characters "is a new step", Mrs Shafak said. "It
means they are now trying to control art, and this is very alarming
because in Turkey -a country that witnessed three military takeovers
-art and literature had always been autonomous."

The crime committed by her characters is to refer to the taboo subject
of mass Armenian killings in Ottoman Turkey in 1915. The Armenians
call it genocide, Turks say large-scale wartime deaths. The fictional
Uncle Dikran speaks of "Turkish butchers", others talk about being
"slaughtered like sheep" and claim all Turks are either nationalist
or ignorant. More absurdly, some Turkish characters are charged over
routine gripes about the country.

The accusations demonstrate a wilful misreading of the book, in which
the families are so mixed up that it is hard to take sides. Mrs Shafak,
describing how many contemporary Turks are descended from minorities
in a multicultural Ottoman Empire, is critical both of Turks’ amnesia
regarding events before the country became a republic in 1923 and of
the Armenian diaspora’s apparent obsession with history.

This trial is not just about her book, she says. The case is part
of a political effort by extreme nationalists to hamper Turkey’s EU
aspiration by demonstrating how un-European it is.

As Turkey has undergone almost unprecedented reform over the past few
years, including a curbing of the powers of the military, it has also
witnessed rising nationalism. It is surely no coincidence, Mrs Shafak
says, that early next month Ipek Calislar, a respected journalist,
will go on trial for "insulting Ataturk", Turkey’s revered founder,
in a book that shared the bestseller spot with The Bastard of Istanbul.

"We are seeing a clash between those who wholeheartedly support the EU
process, and others who want to turn this society into a xenophobic,
isolationist country," she said.

Kemal Kerincsiz, the lawyer who brought the case against Mrs Shafak,
is behind several other such cases. He insists that EU membership
would be a disaster for Turkey, and has claimed that it was not Mrs
Shafak but some shady imperialists who penned her novel as part of
a plot to destroy Turkey.

Mrs Shafak says that many Turkish officials are embarrassed about the
present situation. She does not believe that she will go to jail and
is certain that Article 301 will be reformed. But that does not mean
that Mr Kerincsiz is harmless. Nor does this exonerate the political
elite, which is responsible for creating an environment in which he
can operate.

THE ARMENIAN QUESTION

* Turkey has long refused to call the events of 1915 to 1917 a
genocide. It maintains that the Armenians died in the context of
the First World War and that the State had no role in planning mass
extermination

* Turkey condemned efforts last week by the Cordoban regional
government in Argentina to instate April 24 as a day to commemorate the
Armenian genocide of 1915, reaffirming its insistence that allegations
of a so-called genocide were baseless

* Established a year ago, Article 301 makes it illegal to publish
material that "denigrates Turkishness" and the institutions of the
State -the Government, the judiciary, the military or the state
security apparatus. Under the law, doing so from outside Turkey is
sanctioned more severely, increasing one’s jail sentence by a third

* About 60 publishers, journalists and writers are being prosecuted
currently under the law, which has raised considerable controversy
as Turkey negotiates membership of the European Union

GENERAL WILLIAM WARD, DEPUTY COMMANDER OF U.S. EUCOM, VISITED ARMENIA

Panorama.am
15:54 20/09/06

The Deputy Commander of U.S. European Command (EUCOM), General William
E. "Kip" Ward, visited Armenia September 19-20 as part of a regional
familiarization trip. General Ward visited Georgia before arriving
in Armenia, and will also travel to Azerbaijan.

In Armenia, General Ward visited Armenia"s 12th Peacekeeping
Battalion. He thanked the battalion for its honorable service in
the multinational operations in Iraq and Kosovo and emphasized
the importance of international efforts to support Iraq"s growing
democracy and ensure peace and stability in the Balkans. In addition,
General Ward met with Minister of Defense Serge Sargsian, with
whom he discussed a number of issues, including regional stability,
U.S.-Armenian cooperation in the security and defense spheres, and
the Kansas-Armenia State Partnership Program.

As the deputy commander of U.S. EUCOM, General Ward is responsible
for U.S. forces operating in 91 countries in Europe, Africa, parts
of Asia and the Middle East, and most of the Atlantic Ocean. Prior
to assuming his current position, General Ward was the Deputy
Commanding General/Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army Europe and Seventh
Army. While in this capacity, he was selected by the United States
Secretary of State to serve as the United States Security Coordinator,
Israel-Palestinian Authority, where he served from March 2005 through
December 2005. His military service has included overseas tours in
Korea, Egypt, Somalia, Bosnia, Israel, Germany, and a wide variety
of assignments in the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii.

SHAHNAZARIAN: AUTHORITIES LOOK AT DRAGON LIKE A RABBIT AND DO NOTHING

Noyan Tapan News Agency, Armenia
Sept 19 2006

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 19, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. Until 2006
all the processes connected with the Nagorno Karabakh problem went
"in a direction bad for us," whereas since 2006 spring they started
to go "in a very bad direction." Davit Shahnazarian, member of the
Board of the Armenian National Movement (ANM) Party, expressed such
a viewpoint at the September 19 political dispute.

In D.Shahnazarian’s words, Armenia’s foreign policy already resembles
"a defeated game" (NT a game of chess is meant here): RA Foreign
Ministry declared that if the issue is moved to UN, the Armenian
side will stop the negotiations and the next day it was found out
that the issue "On Situation in Azerbaijan’s Occupied Territories"
had been already placed on UN agenda with Armenia’s consent. And
this, in D.Shahnazarian’s words, means that Armenia for the first
time officially admitted the territories’ being occupied.

The ANM Board member also said that the Armenian authorities will not
manage to prove even to the international community that the document
proposed by the OSCE Co-chairs, in particular, representative of U.S.

Matthew Bryza, was declined by Azerbaijan and not by the two
countries. "With their policy our authorities resemble a rabbit that
without exerting any effort looks at a dragon and does nothing,"
Shahnazarian declared.

Today’s approach to the Nagorno Karabakh settlement, in the speaker’s
words, "by 90% resembles the stage-by-stage approach proposed in
1997." And in general, no Armenian political force has a precise
position in the issue of NKR.

As Davit Shahnazarian affirmed, "the only way out of this situation
is to get rid of the current authorities, their leader, criminal
Robert Kocharian." He said that he voices term "criminal" addressed
to Kocharian not as an insult, but as a legal estimation.

Touching upon appeals of some opposition forces to start struggle
against criminogenic elements, the speaker emphasized: "Different
movements against the so-called crime have started. If these initiators
do not declare that criminal N 1 of Armenia is Robert Kocharian, so,
this is a political order."

THIS YEAR’S LAST TRAIN WITH RUSSIAN MATERIEL READY TO LEAVE GEORGIA

Interfax News Agency
Russia & CIS Military Newswire
September 18, 2006 Monday 11:50 AM MSK

This year’s last train, carrying arms and materiel of the Russian 62nd
military base, deployed in Akhalkalaki, is ready to leave for Russia.

"The train, expected to leave on Tuesday, will transport three tanks,
11 air defence systems, and 300 tons of munitions," a military base
official told Interfax-AVN on Monday.

According to him, the departure of the last train will be attended
by Commander of the Russian Task Force in Transcaucasia Major General
Andrei Popov.

Deputy Commander of the Russian Task Force in Transcaucasia Colonel
Vladimir Kuparadze told Interfax-AVN earlier that this year a total
of six trains had transported 179 pieces of materiel and 217 tons of
various cargo from the Russian 12th military base in Batumi to the
Russian 102nd base in Gyumri, Armenia.

A total of 358 pieces of materiel and 1,671 tons of cargo will be
transproted from Akhalkalaki to Russia.

The withdrawal of Russian military bases from Georgia will be resumed
next year, with the deadline slated for 2008.

HILDA TCHOBOIAN: EUROPEAN ARMENIANS CAN BECOME KEY TO ARMENIA-EUROPE RELATIONS

PanARMENIAN.Net
18.09.2006 16:32 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ One of important nuances of Armenia-Europe relations
is the reality of the Armenian Genocide, which is also part of the
Europe’s past, Chair of the European Armenian Federation (EAFJD)
Hilda Tchoboian stated today in Yerevan within the Armenia-Diaspora
Third All-Armenian Forum. In her words, Europe realizes that
European Armenians have survived a Genocide. Moreover, in Europe’s
consciousness Armenia’s independent statehood is a proof of revival,
for which Armenians of Europe fought for almost a century, she added.

The EAFJD leader noted that Armenians come out as united before the
Europarliament and the European Council and "those institutions cannot
ignore our will." "Only politicized Armenians of Europe can become
a key in Armenia-Europe relations," she summed up.

ROBERT KOCHARIAN: "WE WERE CLOSE TO CONCLUDE AGREEMENT WITH AZERBAIJAN SEVERAL TIMES"

Today.Az
18 September 2006 [13:33] – Today.Az

"Nagorno Karabakh’s people has determined its fortune and is
establishing its independent state now," Armenian president Robert
Kocharian said in his speech at the Armenia-Diaspora Armenian Forum.

He stressed that the heroic struggle of "Arsakh" and the negotiations
are the inseparable part of Armenia’s 15-year independence.

"There were a lot of rises and falls in the negotiating process. We
were close to conclude an agreement with Azerbaijan to ensure freedom
of Nagorno Karabakh people several times. Unfortunately, we failed,"
Kocharian said.

According to APA, Armenian leader said there is no need to respond to
Azerbaijan’s militarist statements mentioning that only the people
with high spirit and professional army will gain victory. Kocharian
also stated that prior duty of all Armenians is to make public the
independence of Nagorno Karabakh all over the world.

The Independent (London)
September 15, 2006 Friday

BOYD TONKIN;
BOOKS A Week in Books

What do you call a state that puts a writer on trial because of
remarks made by a character in a novel, on a charge that carries a
three-year sentence, and then schedules the hearing for a few days
before her first baby is due? A likely candidate for swift progress
towards entry to the European Union? Probably not. Yet, in Turkey,
the surface story seldom tells the entire truth.

Elif Shafak, who will face a court in Istanbul on 21 September to
answer a case of "insulting Turkish identity" under the notorious
Article 301, knows that better then anyone. Her fiction (The Gaze and
The Flea Palace are published here by Marion Boyars) sets out with
passion, wit and courage to break down every Turkish monolith. It
tells tales within tales, shows layers under layers, to reveal a past
and present full of fractures that let the daylight in and banish the
shadows that narrow minds. Fair-haired, fashionably-dressed, raised
in Spain and France and with a university post in Arizona, Shafak
nonetheless rescues old Ottoman traditions and Sufi beliefs from the
disdainful condescension of Ataturk’s secular state. I heard her
speak, compellingly, about her work in London this summer. Any
country should be saluting such a writer, not menacing a mother-to-be
with a prison stretch for thought-crimes.

Armies of her admirers in Turkey share that opinion. Yet the recent
spate of prosecutions under Article 301 – about 60 in the past year
or so, most famously against Orhan Pamuk – is being driven by
right-wing secular nationalists who dread the dilution of "pure"
Turkishness into a European super-state. Sounds familiar? As Shafak
says, many lands now host culture-wars between hopeful openness and
xenophobia.

So every foreign pundit who howls that such cases should scupper
Turkey’s EU accession talks does the diehards’job for them. They fear
European influence, and the cosmopolitanism that an author such as
Shafak brings. Another point that needs endless iteration in today’s
nervy climate is that these artistic persecutions have nothing
whatever to do with any official "Islamist" agenda. Exactly the
contrary: Shafak has shown plenty of sympathetic interest in the
rising appeal of the headscarf and the mosque for educated Turks of
her (thirtysomething) generation. She carefully calls the
pro-European government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan a "Muslim democratic"
regime, not an Islamist one. Like it or not, judicial independence
(and competing powers) fuels this war against the written word.

The deeper truth is that Turkey is a political nation at war with
itself. Shafak likens it to "a tapestry of clashing and coexisting
forces", where "the government and the state are not one and the
same". Last autumn, a conference on Armenian history in Istanbul was
initally banned by the justice minister (it later went ahead) but
welcomed by the foreign minister. And it is, of course, the
still-open wound of the Armenians’ terrible fate as the Ottoman
empire broke apart that has led to Shafak’s day in court next week.

In her new novel The Bastard of Istanbul (originally written in
English – another "insult" in nationalist eyes), an Armenian figure
whose grandparents died in the massacres regrets having "been
brainwashed to deny the genocide" of 1915. Invoke the G-word with
reference to the mass death of Armenians, and every warning light in
the Turkish "deep state" will glow a wrathful red. The outcome is a
Satanic Verses-style furore in which fictional creatures stand
accused of a secular blasphemy. Shafak drily points out that: "As
much as I believe in their vivacity, my Armenian characters cannot go
to court to be tried under Article 301." So she must, with – I hope –
the support of every reader and writer who cherishes the freedom she
upholds.

PanARMENIAN.Net

Cilicia Vessel to Arrive in Yerevan Today
16.09.2006 15:24 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Cilicia Armenian vessel, which is a copy of a
thirteenth-century commercial ship, will arrive in Yerevan September
16, reported Ayas club of sea research, which initiated the
round-the-world voyage of Cilicia. The vessel will be exhibited in the
central square of Yerevan during festivities on the 15th anniversary
of Armenia’s independence, marked on September 21. Next spring the
vessel will drop its anchor in Lake Sevan to be turned into a museum
later.

Having sailed along medieval commercial routes through the Black,
Mediterranean, North and Baltic Seas, as well as the Atlantic, Cilicia
vessel reached Batumi port in Georgia in the beginning of September.

During its voyage Cilicia repeated for the first time within the past
800 years the route of Cilicia traders. Within 2 years the ship passed
15 thousand nautical miles and visited 63 ports in 26 countries of
Europe and the Mediterranean basin, becoming a symbol of peace and
good, to which Armenian people have always been committed to, reports
Novosti-Armenia.

UKRAINE TO FORGE NEW ENERGY DEALS
By Khadija Ismayilova for Eurasianet

ISN, Switzerland
14/09/06

Pipeline politics in the Caspian basin makes for strange political
bedfellows.

Yushchenko made his first official visit on 7 – 8 September to
Azerbaijan. The trip produced seven bilateral cooperation agreements,
including a commitment to expand energy cooperation. Yushchenko said
his administration’s top priority was to forge deals concerning
"the extraction, refining and sale of oil," the Trend news agency
reported. In talks with Aliyev, he touted Ukraine’s Odessa-Brody
pipeline as a potentially new energy conduit linking Azerbaijan,
and possibly Kazakhstan, to Western European markets. The
Yushchenko-proposed route would bypass Russia, as does the already
existing Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.

Following his discussions with Azerbaijani leaders, the Ukrainian
president acknowledged that Kiev and Baku were not a natural fit as
partners. "Our talks were easy-going, but there are problems in our
relations that we are ready to resolve," he said.

For much of the past two years, Ukraine and Azerbaijan have been at
political odds. Yushchenko, who led the Orange Revolution in Kiev
in late 2004, became the embodiment of the democratization movement
in the former Soviet Union. Aliyev, meanwhile, drew international
criticism in connection with the Azerbaijani government’s manipulation
of the 2003 presidential and 2005 parliamentary election. In short,
the two seemed to be polar opposites in terms of political practices.

After Yushchenko’s triumph in Ukraine, Azerbaijan was among the
authoritarian-minded former Soviet states that took action to prevent
the spread of what became known as the Orange Revolution phenomenon. In
September 2005, for example, authorities at Baku airport barred
an activist of the Ukrainian youth organization Pora, which served
as a catalyst for the Orange Revolution, from entering Azerbaijan,
prompting a protest from Kiev.

The "cold war" between Kiev and Baku reached a peak in October
of last year in a dispute over the fate of Rasul Guliyev, an
Azerbaijani opposition leader who is wanted in Baku on embezzlement
charges. Guliyev, who denies the allegations against him, was
attempting to return to Azerbaijan to take part in the country’s
parliamentary elections. Azerbaijani authorities barred his plane from
landing in Baku and he was diverted to a Ukrainian airfield. With an
international warrant against him, he was briefly detained in Ukraine,
but then released. The decision against keeping Guliyev in custody
caused displeasure in Baku, and Aliyev reportedly personally called
Yushchenko to complain.

Geopolitical circumstances in the Caspian Basin seem to have forced
the Azerbaijani and Ukrainian leaders to set aside their philosophical
differences. From Azerbaijan’s perspective, Ukrainian political support
can reinforce Baku’s stance toward a Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. In
a 7 September statement, Aliyev expressed thanks for "Ukrainian
understanding of Azerbaijan’s [Karabakh] position."

Addressing students of Baku Slavic University on 8 September,
Yushchenko placed Ukraine firmly on Azerbaijan’s side, saying that
"recognition of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity is a necessary
condition for settlement of the [Karabakh] conflict."

Yushchenko’s Karabakh statement appears linked to Ukraine’s desire
for Azerbaijani support in the energy sphere. Kiev’s efforts to
reduce its energy dependence suffered a considerable blow in early
September, when Russia cut a deal with Turkmenistan on gas supplies,
thereby denying Ukraine significant access to Ashgabat’s abundant
energy reserves. The Russian-Turkmen deal will likely require that
Ukraine pay a significantly higher price for gas imports.

Russia also wields considerable influence over Ukraine’s oil
supplies. The Odessa-Brody pipeline was supposed to reduce that
dependence, but the oil route, which is capable of transporting 40
million tons of oil per year, remains underutilized. Yushchenko
sought an Azerbaijani commitment to ship a relatively modest
amount – about 4.5 million tons – via Odessa-Brody bound for Western
markets. Aliyev’s did not give a clear response, although he indicated
that diversification of Azerbaijan’s energy export routes is a basic
element of the country’s oil strategy. "We have already established
three pipelines to export our oil to world markets. However, as oil
exploration in Azerbaijan increases we consider new facilities for
export," Aliyev said.

EurasiaNet provides information and analysis about political, economic,
environmental, and social developments in the countries of Central Asia
and the Caucasus, as well as in Russia, the Middle East, and Southwest
Asia. The website presents a variety of perspectives on contemporary
developments, utilizing a network of correspondents based both in the
West and in the region. The aim of EurasiaNet is to promote informed
decision making among policy makers, as well as broadening interest
in the region among the general public. EurasiaNet is operated by
the Central Eurasia Project of the Open Society Institute.

TURKEY, A TOUCHY CRITIC, PLANS TO PUT A NOVEL ON TRIAL
By Susanne Fowler

The New York Times
Istanbul Journal
International Herald Tribune
Published: September 15, 2006

Osman Orsal/Associated Press

The novelist Elif Shafak has been charged with insulting
"Turkishness." Ms. Shafak’s trial is scheduled to begin next
Thursday. The European Union has urged Turkey to foster free
expression.

ISTANBUL – "If there is a thief in a novel," said Elif Shafak recently,
"it doesn’t make the novelist a thief."

Yet, Ms. Shafak is due in court here on Sept. 21 to defend herself
against charges that she insulted "Turkishness" because a character
in her latest novel, "The Bastard of Istanbul," refers to the deaths
of Armenians in 1915 as genocide.

Ms. Shafak, a Turkish citizen who was born in Strasbourg, France, is
being sued under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, the same law
that ensnared Turkey’s best-known contemporary author, Orhan Pamuk,
in 2005.

She is scheduled to give birth to her first child the week of the
trial. A conviction carries a possible penalty of up to three years
in jail.

The plaintiffs are vocal nationalists who she says oppose the
government’s efforts to gain admission for Turkey, the only member
of NATO with a largely Muslim population, into the European Union.

"I believe they want to derail the E.U. process because that would
change many things in the structure of the state and the fabric of
Turkish society," Ms. Shafak, an assistant professor of Near Eastern
studies at the University of Arizona, said in an interview.

"They would rather have an insular, enclosed, xenophobic society than
an open society."

Ms. Shafak, 34, initially escaped a court date by successfully
arguing that the statements over which she was being sued were made
by fictional characters who could not be prosecuted. In June, a public
prosecutor in Istanbul agreed and dismissed the charges.

But Kemal Kerincsiz, a lawyer who is also the leader of a rightist
group opposed to European Union membership for Turkey, filed a new
complaint. In July, a high criminal court in Istanbul overruled the
lower court decision, paving the way for the trial.

"Article 301 has been used by ultranationalists as a weapon to silence
political voices in Turkey," Ms. Shafak said. "In that sense, my case
is not unusual.

But for the first time, they are trying to bring a novel into
court. The way they are trying to penetrate the domain of art and
literature is quite new, and quite disturbing."

The European Union agrees.

Olli Rehn, the European Union’s commissioner for enlargement, said
in July that such cases were evidence that Turkey had failed to align
its laws with the union’s standards. He urged the Turkish authorities
to amend Article 301 "in order to guarantee freedom of expression,"
which he called "a key principle at the core of democracy."

Mr. Pamuk, at the time of his trial, said he hoped the charges against
him would not hurt Turkey’s chances of entering the union. He was
prosecuted for saying during an interview that "a million Armenians
and 30,000 Kurds were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares
talk about it." Eventually, with a groundswell of support from the
West, the charges were dropped.

But more than 60 similar cases have been brought against writers and
artists in Turkey, although no one has served time in prison yet. The
person potentially most at risk is Hrant Dink, a Turk of Armenian
descent who edits a bilingual Turkish and Armenian newspaper.

In July, an appeals court upheld a suspended six-month prison
sentence against him in connection with a column he wrote, and he
faces new charges based on remarks he made in an interview, according
to Reporters Without Borders.

"The Bastard of Istanbul," Ms. Shafak’s novel, was published in
Turkish and has sold 60,000 copies, a best seller in Turkey. It
is to be published in English in January. Its plot centers on two
families with a common past: Turkish Muslims living in Istanbul and
Armenian-Americans in San Francisco.

Among the excerpts opposed by the lawyers’ group is a passage in which
a man of Armenian descent worries about which version of history his
niece will accept as she is raised by her Turkish stepfather. He
wonders aloud if she will state, "I am the grandchild of genocide
survivors who lost all their relatives to the hands of the Turkish
butchers in 1915, but I myself have been brainwashed to deny the
genocide because I was raised by some Turk named Mustapha!"

Turkey says that the deaths of as many as 1.5 million Armenians were
not the result of genocide, but rather of a war in which many Turks
also were killed as the Ottoman Empire was collapsing.

As a writer, Ms. Shafak has shown a penchant for provocative topics.

Her previous novels have touched on suicide, the intersection of
Islamic and Jewish mysticism, and even love between a Sufi dervish
hermaphrodite and a Greek man. She has angered critics in the past
by, in their view, eschewing Turkishness by writing in English and by
using what Turks today call "old words" from the Ottoman vocabulary
that preceded the reforms of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who founded the
Turkish republic in 1923.

Ms. Shafak also took part in a controversial conference in Istanbul
last year on the Armenian question (the first such conference in
Turkey, and one that Mr. Kerincsiz and his group, the Unity of Jurists,
tried to prevent).

So while Europe struggles to define the idea of Europe and who
is European, Turkey is in the midst of its own debate about what
defines Turkishness and whether Turks even want to be considered
European. "There is a clash of opinion in Turkey," Ms. Shafak said. "On
the one hand are the people who are very much pro-E.U., sometimes for
economic reasons, sometimes for political reasons." On the other hand,
she said, are factions, including nationalists, who fear that Turkish
autonomy will be weakened by membership in the union.

"Fear is a powerful element," Ms. Shafak said. "We were taught ever
since we were little kids that Turkey is a country surrounded by
water on three sides and enemies on all sides and that you can never
trust outsiders."

The charges of "insulting Turkishness" seem particularly galling to
Ms. Shafak, whose mother was a Turkish diplomat and whose husband,
Eyup Can, is the editor of Referans, a respected Turkish daily
business newspaper.

"I was thinking of going back to the States to give birth, but
because of the trial I will stay here," Ms. Shafak said. "And I am
happy to be giving birth in Istanbul. This city is very dear to me,
even though it suffers from a sort of collective amnesia."