scherazade's mother

As you've probably already read elsewhere, Elif Shafak was acquitted within forty minutes of the start of her trial, over comments about the Armenian genocide by a character in Shafak's novel Baba ve Piç (Father and Bastard, in English published as "The Bastard of İstanbul"). She was not present at the court--having given birth just days earlier, to a daughter whom she appropriately named Scherazade. But many supporters attended in her stead, and faced down the nationalist activists who had gathered outside with a series of thoroughly nasty flags, posters and banners denouncing "European Union fascism" and branding Shafak as the "bastard" of the EU "father."

For the first time in an Article 301 trial, the prosecutor actually asked for the case to be dropped (on the grounds that the charge was without merit) and the judge swiftly agreed. The prosecutor's step is a potentially hopeful sign, as is Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's statement welcoming the verdict and suggesting that the government may review and alter Article 301. However, he made similar comments before after the Pamuk trial, and it remains to be seen whether the AK Party leadership actually has the will and the leverage to amend the Penal Code. That requires taking on the right-wing nationalists and EU rejectionists, a task from which the government has shirked thus far.

The BBC coverage (which dovetails with my own experience in this respect) suggests that many Turks--certainly, most İstanbullus--disagree with the extremists behind the Article 301 cases:

Most passers-by on one of Istanbul's main shopping streets agreed.

"The trial is ridiculous," one man said. "I am 100% supporting free speech and human rights and I think this should not be the way."

"She only wrote what she thought," a woman agreed. "It is only a book, it is normal I think. The court is not right."

They've also got a good selection of excerpts from articles and editorials on the case from Turkish newspapers (a fairly wide spectrum, including mainstream-Kemalist, progressive, and soft-Islamist papers, though no right-wing nationalist ones): Turks Welcome Shafak's Acquittal. The international coverage of the Shafak case has been really good--for the first time, reporters have been covering the Article 301 cases as a linked phenomenon, focusing on the instigation of them by a small band of fervent nationalists, and emphasizing that many people in Turkey are just as appalled by this campaign as we are. And their more nuanced approach has also made it clearer to an international audience that many other authors, journalists, publishers, and activists are threatened by the same wave of intimidation--indeed, Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink will be back in court under Article 301 charges next month.

(and a little aside: as a result of my new job, I've been privy to some interesting accounts of the Shafak case from some people involved in efforts to monitor and respond to Article 301 issues. There's word about a possible I-am-Spartacus sort of solidarity campaign by which other influential Turkish figures will sign their name to the statement for which Dink has been charged, and demand to be taken to court alongside him. I'll update once I've heard more. Incidentally, having discovered that at least one very senior person at my employer has a public blog, I can probably be a little less coy about what I do....)