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A Turkish court on Thursday acquitted a prize-winning author of charges of insulting the nation in a book about the massacres of Armenians during World War I, saving the government from a fresh embarrassment in its bid to join the European Union.
The acquittal came in the opening hearing of the trial, held in a cramped courtroom in central Istanbul under tight security in case of violence by nationalist protestors.
The judges based their decision on a lack of evidence to prove that Shafak, 35, "denigrated the Turkish national identity" in remarks by fictional Armenian characters in her best-selling novel "The Bastard of Istanbul" or "Baba ve Pic" (The Father and the Bastard) in Turkish.
The ruling came after the prosecutor assigned to the case also argued for her acquittal on the grounds that the alleged crime did not take place.
Shafak, who gave birth to her first child last week, was not present in the hearing, which was followed by observers from the European Union and international rights activists.
After the hearing, there were short-lived scuffles outside the courthouse between supporters of Shafak and the group of nationalist lawyers who instigated the charges against the author for challenging the official line on the Armenian massacres.
Police immediately stepped in to prevent the incident from growing and detained two people, the NTV news channel reported.
Shafak had faced up to three years in jail if convicted on the charges levelled under a controversial penal code article that has been used to prosecute a string of intellectuals for views considered dissident.
The indictment was based on remarks by fictional Armenian characters in "The Bastard of Istanbul", originally written in English and released in Turkey in March 2006, becoming an instant bestseller.
One of the book's characters speaks of "Turkish butchers" of a "genocide" while others talk about being "slaughtered like sheep".
Shafak said after the hearing that she was happy with the outcome of her trial, but expressed concern over rising intolerance among nationalist circles.
"I am very happy with the ruling, but I am concerned about what happened outside the courthouse," she told NTV.
"I am concerned about an idea that has recently developed in Turkey, the idea that 'those who do not think like us are cooperating with the enemy'," she said, adding that a "culture of lynching" was emerging against dissident views.
Shafak's trial was seen by the European Union as a test of freedom of expression in Turkey, which began membership talks with the bloc on October 4.
The EU, which is set to issue next month a report on Turkey's progress in membership talks, has already urged Ankara to amend the infamous Article 301 of the penal code to guarantee freedom of expression and stop the persecution of intellectuals that has cast a pall on its membership bid.
Shafak's novel moves between Istanbul and San Francisco as it tells the intertwined stories of four generations of Turkish women and an Armenian-American family, the descendants of survivors of the massacres.
Armenians assert that up to 1.5 million of their people were slaughtered in what was a genocide between 1915 and 1917, as the Ottoman Empire, modern Turkey's predecessor, was falling apart.
Categorically rejecting the genocide label, Turkey argues that 300,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia and sided with Russian troops invading the crumbling Ottoman Empire.
Much to Ankara's ire, the massacres have been recognised as a genocide by many countries.
A taboo for many decades, the Armenian killings have only recently become the subject of a tentative public debate, often sending nationalist sentiment into a frenzy.
nc-han/wdb
Turkey-justice-rights-EU
AFP 210953 GMT 09 06
COPYRIGHT 2006 Agence France-Presse. All rights reserved.
