Prime Minister expresses sorrow to Kurdish singer Rojin

ISTANBUL - Anatolia News Agency

Famous singer Rojin hosted a TV show on state-run Kurdish-language channel TRT 6 last year before leaving. Hürriyet photo

Turkey’s prime minister and deputy prime minister have expressed their sorrow to Kurdish singer Rojin after she was verbally targeted by state-run Turkish Radio and Television’s (TRT) general director last week.

“In a meeting where she [Rojin] is not present, I find it extremely worrying for [TRT head] İbrahim Şahin to utter such words,” Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç said, noting that he had personally called the singer to apologize.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his wife, Emine Erdoğan, also called Rojin to express their discomfort with Şahin’s comments.

Şahin is said to have called Rojin a “hussy” while discussing her former TV show on the Kurdish-language TRT 6, according to participants at a closed-door meeting that did not include the singer.

Daily Taraf columnist Orhan Miroğlu objected to Şahin’s comments and left the meeting, daily Vatan reported. Şahin was said to have defended himself by saying that “this is my way of speaking.”

Şahin, however, publicly apologized saying, “I spoke of Rojin in an inappropriate way; I apologize to her and the Turkish public.” Rojin filed a criminal suit last year against journalist Serdar Turgut for writing in his column, “I would abduct Rojin and make her my sex slave.”