"It is an extraordinary outcome. Normally a case like this would drag on for a year and a half and end with a prison sentence," said Jonathan Sugden, Human Rights Watch's Turkey researcher, in Istanbul to observe the Tas trial. "We only hope that it is more than a one-time response to Chomsky's celebrity status and signals a new approach by Turkey's justice system to respect the right to free expression in all cases."

Human Rights Watch said that the significance of the decision would become clear in the coming weeks, as courts reach judgments in similar pending cases. Nese Duzel, a journalist whose case also came before the Istanbul State Security Court Wednesday, faces charges of "incitement to racial hatred" for publishing an interview describing the situation of the Alevi minority in Turkey.

In contrast to the Chomsky case, proceedings in the Duzel case were postponed, pending the entry into force of amendments to the article of the criminal code under which Duzel was charged. The amendments were part of what the government called a "mini-democracy package," aimed at addressing restrictions on free expression that violated international standards. Human Rights Watch discounted the impact of the recent reform, which has left in place many legal prohibitions that could be used to restrict protected expression.