Charges dropped against Pamuk

I have only read one of Orhan Pamuk's novels, Snow. I liked it a lot. Here is some good news coming out of Turkey.

From the NYT book section Court drops charges against author for 'insulting' Turkey.

ISTANBUL, Jan. 23 - An Istanbul court dropped charges against the novelist Orhan Pamuk today, ending a trial that put Turkey at odds with the European Union over the issue of freedom of speech.
Mr. Pamuk, whose works have been translated into dozens of languages, spoke in a newspaper interview about the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in 1915, and also of the deaths of Kurds in Turkish operations in the 1980's against a separatist group. He was then prosecuted for "insulting Turkish identity." ...

The ruling was immediately welcomed by the European legislators. But the novelist's lawyer, Haluk Inanici, chided the court for framing its decision in bureaucratic terms rather than addressing the issue of freedom of expression.

"The court dropped the charges not because the trial violated the freedom of speech," Mr. Inanici said, but because "there was a missing approval by the Justice Ministry to proceed with the trial."

The article goes on to speculate that Pamuk's international reputation may have saved him. About 70 other intellectuals face charges of insulting Turkey.