A Turkish court today found in favour of the freedom of expression by acquitting writer Elif Shafak of ‘insulting Turkishness’ through the characters of a novel.

Mrs Shafak faced up to three years in jail if she had been convicted, over comments made by characters in her book The Bastard of Istanbul about the massacre of Armenians in the last days of the Ottoman Empire. Turks strongly deny that the shameful historical episode was genocide.

Human rights campaigners and European Union praised the judgement in the controversial case, but urged the reform of restrictive laws which made the hearing possible.

There was some hope after the hearing that their demands may, at least partially, be met. Hours after Mrs Shafak was acquitted, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, who had been criticised for failing to speak out against a tide of similar cases against writers and intellectuals, suggested that the Government might be prepared to revise Article 301 of the penal code, which is used as a charge in many of these cases.

Chief judge Irfan Adil Uncu cleared Mrs Shafak because of lack of evidence that she had committed an offence. Even the prosecutor, who had originally been obliged to take on the case by a higher court, read out a statement saying that the 34-year-old writer should be acquitted - which she duly was, with a speed even the most optimistic of her defenders had not expected.

"I’m very happy with the outcome but only on a personal basis. As long as Article 301 is out there and interpreted or misinterpreted like that there’ll be many other cases like this... This is not the last one," Mrs Shafak said after the hearing, which she did not attend as she was nursing a baby born by Caesarian section five days ago.

Her words were echoed by the EU, which has been closely following Mrs Shafak’s and around 80 similar cases. Joost Lagendijk, co-chair of the EU-Turkey joint parliament committee, invited Turkish politicians to stand by their liberal statements of one year ago, when they successfully campaigned for a start to accession negotiations with the EU.

"They have no right to stand and watch the damage done to the freedom of expression through such legal proceedings just because they are seeking to capitalise on a rise of nationalism in next year’s elections," Mr Lagendijk said.

Mr Erdogan appeared to be listening. Referring to the Shafak case as‘saddening’, he said the Government and Opposition should join together in discussing a reform of Article 301. "These laws are not finite, permanent things. We can reach an agreement and take steps (for reform)..."

But Richard Howitt, a European Member of Parliament, said that Turkish officials had long been hinting at change without any action. "We have been talking to the Turkish Government about this since late 2004," he said, adding that simply amending the law would not be enough.

"We have prosecutors and lawyers who are wilfully misinterpreting this law, and for this reason it needs to be abolished completely."

Many people both in and outside Mr Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK) are embarrassed by the present use of supposedly reformed laws to drag top public figures - including Turkey’s most famous novelist, Orhan Pamuk -- through the courts. They are also under great pressure by the international community to improve freedom of speech.

But election concerns, and the desire to avoid being seen to publicly bow to an outside body such as the EU, had led to a softly softly - some say far too softly - policy of waiting for the courts to set a positive precedent, rather than reforming the law outright.

Today’s hearing, both in result and manner, did show that the tide has begun to change since the unpleasant and chaotic scenes which were beamed to international television screens from Mr Pamuk’s trial less than a year ago. Although there was much irate shouting by nationalist lawyers both inside and outside the courtroom, and a punch-up outside the courthouse on the shores of Istanbul’s picturesque Golden Horn, this time it was the nationalists who got short shrift from both court officials and the well-organised security outside.

While the corridors of the court house during Mr Pamuk’s hearing was filled with thuggish nationalist youths hurling threats and missiles at bystanders, this time the nationalists, with their placards and oversize Turkish flag, were left outside the gates. Inside, a generally quiet group of socialist protesters were only animated to boo the lawyers, some of whom motioned to them that they should ‘step outside’ for a fight.

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