Deniz Göktaş was detained at Istanbul airport after a viral stand-up routine in which he mocked Turkey’s president and joked about the Quran; prosecutors say they received 185 complaints accusing him of insulting the president and religious valuesynet|Turkish comedian Deniz Göktaş, 32, was arrested at Istanbul airport on suspicion of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and “publicly denigrating religious values,” after a stand-up routine in which he allegedly mocked Erdogan and other public figures while joking about Turkey’s political climate.“I was on vacation abroad. I knew they would arrest me when I returned to Turkey,” Göktaş told his followers before his detention.GalleryDeniz GöktaşDuring the show, Göktaş called Erdogan a “dictator,” a statement that violates Turkish law banning insults against the president. The religious offense allegation stems from another joke in which he said: “I think the Quran is the best of the books,” referring to Judaism and Christianity as well. “On the one hand, it was a bold statement for the 7th century. But it is also very difficult for the writer, because if he thinks of something new, too bad, we have already decided this is the final book.”Footage of the performance was posted on June 24 and has since been viewed about 9 million times online. Reports on the arrest noted that Göktaş mocked figures from across Turkey’s political spectrum, including former Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, widely seen as Erdogan’s main political rival, who was arrested and jailed in March 2025, triggering widespread protests across the country.Göktaş’ arrest comes amid a broader crackdown by Turkish authorities on those seen as opponents of Erdogan’s rule, with a growing number of investigations and arrests targeting musicians and artists, as well as journalists and politicians. The Istanbul public prosecutor’s office said it had “received 185 complaints against Göktaş’ performance.”Before the arrest, short clips from the show posted on X were blocked in Turkey on grounds of “protecting national security and public order.” A few days later, an investigation was opened, with authorities claiming the stand-up routine included “offensive remarks amounting to a criminal offense.”Göktaş wrote before his arrest that he was abroad on vacation when the investigation began, and that he returned to Turkey knowing he would be detained on arrival.Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)Erdogan has ruled Turkey for 23 consecutive years. He became president in 2014, after about 11 years as prime minister, and continued to effectively govern the country through loyalists in the ruling party until a 2017 referendum abolished the office of prime minister and transferred its powers to the presidency.Since the start of his presidency, however, Erdogan has been accused of using the law against insulting the Turkish president in an excessive and aggressive manner. Before his election as president, the law was used only rarely.By March 2016, 1,845 criminal cases had already been opened under the law. In 2021, Turkish media reported that the number of investigations had risen to 160,000, with 35,000 leading to indictments. According to reports, more than 13,000 people have been convicted of insulting Erdogan, with thousands imprisoned as a result.In 2016, then-London Mayor Boris Johnson, later Britain’s prime minister, won a contest in which participants were asked to write crude and offensive poems about Erdogan in solidarity with a German comedian who was sued after publishing a vulgar poem about the Turkish president. Unlike his aggressive legal battles against other critics, Erdogan chose not to take legal action against Johnson, apparently to preserve good relations with the United Kingdom.In February this year, an Israeli woman was arrested in Istanbul and held for about two weeks on suspicion of insulting the Turkish flag, Erdogan and the “State of Palestine.”