A Turkish standup comedian whose latest routine called the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a “reticent dictator who grew into the role" was detained on Thursday at Istanbul's main airport on charges of insulting religious values, a crime punishable by between six months and one year in prison.Deniz Goktas was handcuffed and taken into police custody after returning from an overseas trip, a move that critics say further highlights mounting repression under the famously thin-skinned Turkish leader who has ruled the country for 24 years. It remains unclear whether he will be formally charged and arrested or freed after interrogation at the Istanbul Security Branch Directorate, where he was transferred.— Halk TV (@halktvcomtr) July 2, 2026
Goktas’ set, uploaded to YouTube for free viewing, swiftly went viral and garnered more than 8.7 million views by the time he was detained. The office of Istanbul’s chief prosecutor said Goktas was detained following 185 complaints from the public about his content.His irreverent references to the Quran were cited as the principal cause for a judicial probe and his subsequent detention. Goktas had in fact credited the Quran as being “the best” of holy books revered by different faiths.In April, a female comedian, Tuba Ulu, was detained after quipping that “even” the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent had married his "fuck buddy." She was referring to Roxelana, a Christian slave from Ukraine, who converted to Islam and became the sultan’s favorite. Ulu was accused of insulting “historical and moral values" and could spend up to three years in prison if convicted as charged. “Deniz Goktas showed the youth of this country that it’s possible to speak out without fear. A very important threshold has been breached,” Ayse Baltacioglu-Brammer, a Turkish historian at New York University, wrote on X.
