Turk historian acquitted in Muslim headscarf trial

ISTANBUL, Nov 1 (Reuters) In a case testing free speech in Turkey, a 92-year-old historian was acquitted today of insulting Muslim women in a book linking the origins of the headscarf to prostitutes in Sumer 5,000 years ago.

An Istanbul court judge said Muazzez Ilmiye Cig's writings had not insulted religious honour nor incited hatred and enmity as charged by the prosecution in the overwhelmingly Muslim but secular European Union candidate country.

Dozens of intellectuals, notably Nobel literature prize winner Orhan Pamuk, have been prosecuted over the past year for insulting concepts held dear by Turks, such as Turkish identity or the founder of the republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

''I am a person of the Ataturk revolution and as a Turkish woman I try to bring people together, I'm not someone who is trying to incite hatred,'' Cig, flanked by 15 lawyers who came to support the Sumerian historian, told the court.

Cig, who has translated 3,000 stone tablets and published her findings last year, had faced up to three years in jail if convicted of all charges.

She was applauded by supporters as she left the court house.

Lawyer Yusuf Akin brought the case against Cig saying her conclusions about the headscarf insulted Muslim women.

In its annual progress report on Turkey due to be published on November 8, the European Commission is expected to sharply criticise Turkish prosecutions of intellectuals and journalists for expressing peaceful opinions.

Brussels is particularly critical of article 301 of the penal code, which makes it a crime to insult Turkish identity.

Cig was charged under a separate article in the law.

Turkey's centre-right government has resisted EU pressure to modify articles criticised as curbing freedom of expression, saying more time is needed to build up a body of case law. Most cases involving freedom of expression are dropped, it says.

The Sumerians were among the first settled societies considered a civilisation, ruling southern Mesopotamia, in what is now Iraq, from 3000 to 2000 BC.

In her book ''My Reactions as a Citizen'' Cig said headscarves were worn by women who worked as prostitutes in temples during the Sumerian period to differentiate them from women who worked primarily as priests.

Females often presided over the temples in the polytheistic society, Cig said.

Turkey's ruling AK Party, which has roots in political Islam but has since coming to power distanced itself from those beliefs, wants to relax rules on wearing the Islamic-style headscarf at universities and public offices in Turkey.

Pro-secularists, including the powerful armed forces and parts of the judiciary, fear easing such restrictions will undermine the ideas of Ataturk.

Reuters SP DS1610