İYİ Party leader Akşener slams indictment accusing actress Kaya of ‘insulting’ rape convict

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İYİ (Good) Party leader Meral Akşener has slammed the indictment prepared against actress Hazal Kaya for whom prosecutors are seeking jail term on charges of “insulting” rape convict Musa Orhan, a former sergeant.

“If a woman is dying, we will all demand justice! If a woman is being silenced, we will all speak! If a woman is being wronged, we will all stand by her upright, like a rock! It is not enough that you are unable to keep women alive, and now you are trying to silence them?” Akşener tweeted on April 20.

“But whatever you do, it is futile! Only 24 days later, women will speak out, women will live and women will write a brand new history, despite you.”

Akşener’s remarks came after prosecutors have demanded up to two years and four months in jail for Kaya over a tweet.

In the relevant tweet, Kaya had protested another lawsuit launched against colleague Ezgi Mola who had criticized the judiciary for releasing rape defendant Orhan during the trial process.

Orhan was arrested on Aug. 19, 2020 following public outrage over 18-year-old Kurdish woman İpek Er's death. In a suicide note she left on July 16, 2020, Er wrote that she had been kidnapped and raped by Orhan for 20 days. She later lost her life in the hospital in August after she shot herself.

Despite the grave accusations, Orhan was released in less than a week on Aug. 25, 2020, with several people pointing the hypocrisy of the judicial-making processes, one of whom was Mola.

Mola was later sentenced to pay a fine of 6,960 liras for “insulting” Orhan. During the trial process, she received the support of many people, one of whom was Kaya.  

In December 2021, Orhan was sentenced to 10 years in prison but he was still not jailed. The court merely imposed judicial control on him and banned him from leaving the country.