A famous Turkish actress, Farah Zeynep Abdullah, has been taken to court yet again for insulting a convicted rapist and a former special sergeant in the Turkish army, Musa Orhan, who sexually assaulted an 18-year-old Kurdish woman.
Abdullah took to her social media to announce that Orhan had taken her to court again, expressing her frustration, describing the former sergeant as dishonourable and saying that he was exploiting the justice system for personal gain. She revealed that he was suing her for damages, referring to him as a ‘greedy dog’.
“I’m not afraid, we’re not afraid. Enough is enough. If justice had been served, none of us would resort to words like ‘dishonourable.’ We would trust that the proper punishment would be administered. But he walks about in freedom and continues to take people to court, even demanding compensation. It’s truly infuriating,” she wrote.
The 18-year-old Kurdish student İpek Er died of complications from a suicide attempt on 18 August 2020, after 20 days in hospital in her home town, the Kurdish-majority city of Batman (Elîh).
She left a detailed note stating she had been abducted, drugged and raped by Musa Orhan while he was on duty in the southeastern province of Siirt (Sêrt) but that she believed that if she had complained, he would not have been held accountable.
Orhan was first detained following the public outcry after Er’s suicide attempt but released a week later by court order pending trial, on the grounds that there was “no risk of evidence spoliation”, as his victim was still fighting for her life in a hospital bed.
Following accusations of protecting a rape suspect, Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu announced Orhan’s dismissal from the military in September 2020.
In December 2021, Orhan was finally sentenced to 10 years in prison for sexual assault and causing the death of Er, however, the court reduced his sentence for “good conduct” and refused to remand him in custody based on Turkey’s parole laws.
Orhan remains free, and he has made a habit of taking actresses who write about him on social media to court. This is not the first time the convicted rapist has taken Abdullah to court, as she has already faced repercussions for an earlier tweet regarding the case, in which she was found guilty of insult and sentenced to a judicial fine.
The actresses Hazal Kaya and Ezgi Mola and the singer Melek Mosso are three more well-known figures also facing charges of insult against Orhan.
The Turkish journalist Pınar Gayıp also faced three identical investigations for reporting the sexual assault.
In an interview following the court’s decision in December 2021, the co-chair of Turkey’s Human Rights Association (İHD) Eren Keskin referred to a photograph in the mainstream media showing the perpetrator Orhan making the hand sign of Grey Wolves, an ultra far-right Turkish nationalist organisation and said: “If a perpetrator wears an official uniform, and makes the sign of the Grey Wolves, which is the official sign of fascism, unfortunately, he is protected everywhere.”
