Istanbul (AFP) – Prosecutors on Saturday opened a probe into a 95-year-old billionaire and honorary head of Koc Holdings, Turkey’s biggest conglomerate, over a joke about a Kurdish woman widely denounced as sexist and racist. The blunder was made by Rahmi Koc at the opening of a hospital in the western resort city of Izmir late Friday, but when the footage started circulating online it caused a backlash.
The joke, which revolved around a misunderstanding between a Kurdish woman and a doctor, also drew the ire of the pro-Kurdish opposition DEM party which said it had filed a complaint against him. The probe was announced by Justice Minister Akin Gurlek on X, who said it was over “expressions deemed to target women and citizens of a specific ethnic identity,” although he did not publicly name Koc. “Uttering such words under the guise of a ‘joke’ or humour does not mitigate this discourtesy displayed toward our women and a specific segment of our society,” he wrote.
Also on X, DEM said it had filed a criminal complaint against Koc “for making sexist remarks about Kurdish women, on the grounds of ‘public incitement to hatred and hostility,’ ‘insult,’ and ‘hate and discrimination.'” In response to the backlash, Koc issued a brief apology published by Koc Holding on X, saying his remarks “were not intended to target any particular group.” “I would like to sincerely express my regret,” he wrote.
Koc stepped down as chairman of Koc Holding in 2003, handing the reins to his eldest son, Mustafa Koc, who died suddenly of a heart attack in 2016. He was 55. Koc Holding is a family-run conglomerate set up in the 1920s whose main sectors are energy, automotive, durable consumer goods, and finance, although it is also involved in technology, food, retail, tourism, agriculture, and shipbuilding.
Family-run conglomerates are the mainstays of Turkey’s economy, with interests in every sector, with Koc Holding accounting for approximately seven percent of Turkey’s GDP and around eight percent of Turkish exports, it says on its website. Forbes magazine this year estimated that Rahmi Koc has a fortune of $2.4 billion.
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