A Councillor Wrongly Accused But Exonerated After Two Stressful Years

In this Podcastwe talk to Cllr Ayfer Orhan who has spent two years of abuse and harassment after wrongly being accused of anti semitism. The Labour Party nationally exonerated her but took two years to do so and the High Court ruled that such delay amounted to being unlawful.

In March 2019, Cllr Orhan posted a tweet that questioned a drilling contract in the Golan Heights, which had apparently been awarded to a private energy company. The Golan Heights, an area internationally recognised as belonging to Syria, is currently occupied by the State of Israel.

Following the publication of the tweet in 2019, the Leader of Enfield Council Cllr Caliskan issued a public statement, carried by various media outlets, labelling the tweet “anti-Semitic”. That allegation has now been rejected by the Labour Party. Cllr Caliskan also claimed that Cllr Orhan had been “suspended” from the Labour Group.

Despite an intervention from the national Labour Party, which clarified that Cllr Orhan was merely under investigation and could continue as a Labour representative, Cllr Orhan says that the council leader’s remarks triggered an “avalanche of abuse” against her, which formed part of a “culture of bullying and harassment”.

Over the past two years, Cllr Orhan has been subject to strict confidentiality requirements but now is able to speak freely about the incident and the abuse aimed at her and the stress caused.

This is a shameful episode in Labour Party history both at a national and local level and it is important that it should never happen again