Ex-soldier walks free as sentence suspended in rape and kidnap case
By Turkish Minute – December 3, 2021 569 0 by Duvar English Click to read news of Ipek Er in Turkish. shared with thanks!
A Turkish court has handed down a suspended sentence to a former non commissioned officer standing trial for raping İpek Er, an 18-year-old Kurdish woman who was later driven to committing suicide, local media reported on Friday.
In the sixth and final hearing of his trial on Friday, former soldier Musa Orhan was given a suspended sentence of 10 years by the Siirt 1st High Criminal Court on conviction of sexual assault.
Since the sentence was suspended, Orhan wasn’t arrested but was rather placed under judicial supervision, Turkish media reports said.
Human Rights Association (İHD) co-chair and lawyer Eren Keskin on Friday condemned Turkish judiciary for letting Orhan walk free.
“İpek Er ended her life after the sexual assault she experienced. The attacker is free and most likely will.. not ‘serve’ the sentence he was given. This is a place where a uniform and a wolf sign are held as ‘superior’ to both domestic and international law,” Keskin tweeted, referring to a photo of Orhan released by the Turkish media showing him making a hand sign of the nazi Grey Wolves, representing a wolf’s head.
The Grey Wolves are seen as the militant wing of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), an ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), and their ideology is mainly based on Turkish nationalism. Therefore, Kurds, like Ipek Er, and other minorities in Turkey have been their targets.
The ordeal of Er, a Kurdish woman who finally died in a hospital on August 18, 2020, 33 days after she tried to take her own life, was discovered in a letter she wrote on July 16, 2020, before her suicide attempt. She said in the letter that she was abducted and raped by Orhan for 20 days in the southeastern city of Batman.
Orhan was detained the following day after the rape allegation was confirmed by a report from the Council of Forensic Medicine but he was later released under judicial supervision.
Many women’s associations in Turkey criticized the decision, saying the judicial system was “protecting a rapist” by allowing him to walk free.
In early October popular Turkish actress Ezgi Mola was convicted on insult charges and ordered to pay a fine of TL 5,200 ($377) for protesting Orhan’s release in a tweet in August 2020.
“Drown in the conscience that let you release this rapist low-life,” Mola had tweeted, after the former soldier was released pending trial after six days behind bars, despite a forensics report confirming that he raped Er.
Femicides and violence against women are serious problems in Turkey, where women are killed, raped or beaten every day. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) government’s policies that protect men by granting them impunity is the main cause of the situation, critics say.
In late May Minister of Family and Social Services Derya Yanık attracted widespread criticism due to remarks suggesting that the country has experienced “tolerable levels” of domestic violence during the coronavirus pandemic while speaking to members of a committee investigating violence against women.
Early in 2020 President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sparked outrage in Turkey and the international community after he pulled the country out of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, better known as the Istanbul Convention, an international accord designed to protect women’s rights and prevent domestic violence in societies.
AKP policies behind decision not to imprison convicted rapist, main opposition says
By Turkish Minute – December 4, 2021
A senior member of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has argued that the policies of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) paved the way for an ex-soldier to recently walk free despite a rape conviction, local media reported on Friday.
Women kidnappings spike in lawless Turkey-controlled Afrin .
Musa Orhan, a former noncommissioned officer standing trial for raping an 18-year-old Kurdish woman named İpek Er, who later committed suicide, on Friday was handed down a reduced sentence of 10 years on conviction of sexual assault.
Since the sentence was suspended, Orhan wasn’t arrested but was rather placed under judicial supervision, with many criticizing the court’s move to allow a convicted rapist to walk free.
CHP vice chair Gökçe Gökçen on Friday argued in a written statement that the situation in Turkey, in which Musa Orhan was allowed to walk and rapists are given reduced sentences, was a result of government policies disregarding women’s safety.
“Musa Orhan and many other attackers are still walking freely among us. This order, in which women’s killers … plan their attack in advance and show extraordinary solidarity to avoid punishment by making similar defenses, isn’t a spontaneous occurrence. All this is a result of policies that wage war against … laws that protect women’s rights,” Gökçen said.
“If today young women in Turkey are subjected to violence at home, if they have to think twice before going out, if they lose their economic independence and are stripped of ways to fight against violence, this is the result of a political choice,” she added, referring to the ruling AKP.
Making reference to a CHP report released last week on Turkey’s brain drain, Gökçen stated that young women say their main reason for leaving the country is that they no longer feel safe there due to government policies protecting violent and abusive men.
“The court’s decision [on Orhan] today unfortunately proves young women right who say, ‘If something happens to me, I don’t believe those responsible will be punished,’ and ‘I’m tired of the harassment that happens to me every day, no matter what I wear or wherever I am,” the CHP lawmaker stated.
Gökçen further said that the solution for this was to change the understanding that protects women’s killers and rapists by implementing Law No 6284 for the protection of the family and prevention of violence against women and the Istanbul Convention.
Early in 2020 President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sparked outrage in Turkey and the international community after he pulled the country out of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, better known as the Istanbul Convention, an international accord designed to protect women’s rights and prevent domestic violence in societies.
Femicides and violence against women are serious problems in Turkey, where women are killed, raped or beaten every day. The AKP government’s policies that protect men by granting them impunity is the main cause for the situation, critics say.
Rape used as war weapon by Turkey against Kurdish minority. Girl raped by 27 State forces
Women kidnappings spike in lawless Turkey-controlled Afrin .
Kurdish Child ‘raped by 27 police and army’ in Batman, Turkey.. Turkish security forces were the perpetrators of incidents of mass rape, it has been revealed … from Kurdish Center For Human Rights
Brutal War rages as Turkish army attacks Autonomous Uprising
Turkey imprisons 9 Kurdish feminists for singing “Feminicide is political”
4 out of every 10 Turkish women experience domestic violence, academic study says
Dilar Dirik promotes Women’s Revolution in Rojava
‘TheFreeOnline’ blog banned in Turkey with Dozens more pro Rojava and anti Fascist sites
Orso killed by ISIS.. But Lives Always in our Hearts
Anna is dead but with us, we fight on! Bristol Antifascists Demo
Police clash with women’s day marchers in Turkey (VIDEO)
Feminism across borders: STOP the Fascist Genocide in Afrin
Helen dead on Hunger Strike for jailed Yorum group and banned music in fascist Turkey.
The Underground Free Women’s Movement (TJA) in Kurdish Turkey
September 18, 2019
Rojava-inspired Women’s Councils Spread across Europe
May 16, 2017
Turkey jails yet another pregnant woman on terrorism charges
The Free 
 standing trial for raping İpek Er, an 18-year-old Kurdish woman who later committed suicide, local media reported on Friday.){kind=link}
One thought on “Turkish nazi, proven Kidnapper and multiple Rapist, gets suspended sentence from Erdogan’s misogynist and racist Court”