Writer's trial a key moment for Turkey

Sarah Rainsford BBC News, Istanbul

Turkish police were on duty outside Beyoglu court from early morning.
Riot police lined up at the main gates complete with plastic shields and gas masks.
The courtroom itself was sectioned off behind a row of tall temporary fencing.
High security, for the trial of a novelist.
Elif Shafak stood accused of "insulting Turkishness". The charge related to her latest novel The Bastard of Istanbul.
The novel centres on two families - one Turkish, one Armenian - and includes discussion of the mass killing of Armenians in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire.

Armenia insists Turkey recognise that as genocide.

The author says her novel examines issues of memory and amnesia.
She had hoped it might promote empathy between nations.

Instead she was charged under Article 301 of the penal code - which holds a possible prison sentence of three years.
"In our culture no-one can brand their ancestors murderers or accuse them of genocide," Kemal Kerincsiz insisted ahead of the trial.
He is one of the nationalist lawyers who filed the initial complaint against the novel.
"Maybe in the West they're more tolerant, but here we can't accept those comments as criticism."

That says it all really.