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Top novelist acquitted in Turkey

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  • Top novelist acquitted in Turkey

    BBC News
    Thursday, 21 September 2006,

    Top novelist acquitted in Turkey

    Elif Shafak hoped her novel would encourage empathy
    A court in Istanbul has acquitted the best-selling
    Turkish novelist, Elif Shafak, who had been accused of
    insulting "Turkishness".
    Ms Shafak, 35, had faced charges for comments made by
    her characters on the mass killings of Armenians in
    the final years of the Ottoman Empire in 1915.

    Turkey rejects Armenia's claim that the killings
    constituted "genocide".

    The EU has been urging Turkey to abolish a
    controversial law that makes it a crime to insult the
    Turkish state.

    The trial was seen by the EU as a test of freedom of
    expression in Turkey, which began membership talks
    with the 25-member bloc last October.

    Scuffles

    The proceedings lasted just 40 minutes and ended in
    utter chaos, the BBC's Sarah Rainsford reports.

    The judges said they based their decision on lack of
    evidence to prove that Ms Shafak "denigrated the
    Turkish national identity" in her novel, The Bastard
    of Istanbul.

    If Article 301 will be interpreted in this way
    nobody can write novels in Turkey anymore, no-one can
    make movies any more

    Elif Shafak

    Ms Shafak - who has recently given birth to her first
    child - was not present at the hearing.

    The nationalist lawyers who brought the case under
    Article 301 of Turkey's penal code walked out in anger
    shortly after the trial opened.

    They claimed the court and judges had been unduly
    influenced by the EU.

    Riot police moved in to stop scuffles between
    nationalists and leftists outside the courthouse.

    'Autonomy of art'

    One of the lawyers who filed the complaint against Ms
    Shafak had claimed that her novel was Armenian
    propaganda, dripping with hatred for the Turks.

    One of the novel's characters speaks of "Turkish
    butchers" and a "genocide", while others talk about
    being "slaughtered like sheep".

    Ms Shafak was the latest in a long line of writers to
    face similar charges in Turkey. But this was the first
    time Article 301 had been used against a work of
    fiction.

    "If Article 301 will be interpreted in this way nobody
    can write novels in Turkey anymore, no-one can make
    movies any more," Ms Shafak told the BBC before the
    trial.

    "The words of a character could be used as evidence
    against the author or the film director. I think it is
    extremely important to defend the autonomy of art, and
    of literature," she said.
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