Thursday, September 21, 2006

Bloomberg.com: Turkey Drops Charges Against Shafak in Key EU Trial

"Turkey Drops Charges Against Shafak in Key EU Trial

By Ayla Jean Yackley

Sept. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Turkish prosecutors dropped charges against novelist Elif Shafak, on the first day of her trial for denigrating the national identity in a case monitored by the European Union as a benchmark for Turkey's human rights record.

The Istanbul court threw out the case, brought under article 301 of Turkey's penal code, after the judge and prosecutor said Shafak had not ``insulted Turkishness'' in a novel describing the alleged genocide of Armenians by Turks in 1915."

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