Turkish Comedian Deniz Göktaş Stands Trial for Alleged Insult of President Erdoğan

A Turkish comedian stands trial in Istanbul on Monday, accused of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and other offenses stemming from a June stand‑up performance.

Deniz Göktaş, 32, was arrested on July 3, a week after posting a YouTube video of his show that drew nearly 9 million views, and shortly after short clips he shared on X (formerly Twitter) also went viral.

Around fifty protesters gathered outside the courthouse on Monday morning, umbrellas up against the rain, chanting “Deniz Göktaş is not alone.”

Supporters and journalists also waited to enter, including fellow comedians from Istanbul’s TuzBiber club and observers from the Dutch embassy and the U.S. consulate.

As a NATO member and EU candidate, Turkey frequently prosecutes individuals for speech‑related offenses, especially alleged “insults” against its long‑serving leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

What charges does Goktas face? 

Göktaş, who has been in pretrial detention since July, faces multiple charges tied to his “Dead Sea” show. He alluded to his upcoming court appearance in a social‑media post from his cell on Sunday.

“After 88 days, I’ll be handcuffed for the first time and hear a car horn. I’m not missing the handcuffs, but let’s see if I’ve missed the car horn,” he quipped.

Göktaş is accused of insulting Erdoğan, inciting public hatred and hostility through jokes about Islam, and praising crime and criminals—a charge added by prosecutors after a joke about the organized‑crime family known as the Daltons.

“A 90‑minute show generates a new charge roughly every two months,” Göktaş wrote in late August, noting that the additional accusation stemmed from a joke about the Daltons.

Since Turkish courts can impose consecutive sentences for multiple convictions, Göktaş theoretically faces several years in prison if found guilty on all counts.

His trial is part of a broadening crackdown on critics of Turkey’s moderate Islamist government, which has seen hundreds of politicians, artists, musicians, journalists and LGBTQ activists detained or put on trial.

LGBTQ+ communities in Turkey fear intensifying clampdown

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Erdogan the only claimant, Diyanet religious authority among those to complain

According to the Turkish NGO Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA), prosecutors have cited more than 500 applications to prosecute the performer over the show.

They were submitted to the Presidential Communications Center, which monitors such matters. One tip came from the government‑sponsored Presidency of Religious Affairs, better known as Diyanet.

Erdoğan is named as the sole complainant.

The indictment cites specific jokes from Göktaş’s show as exceeding the limits of permissible speech.

The indictment lists Göktaş’s characterization of Erdoğan as a “shy dictator” and his remark that the president had “transitioned to a dictator at peace with his own identity” as insults aimed at Turkey’s leader, who has held office as prime minister or president since 2003.

Erdoğan’s government has drawn attention in recent years for prosecuting those it deems to have unfairly criticized the authorities, and for the various lawsuits against leading opposition figures, especially the CHP. The Turkish president’s litigious tendency also made headlines in Germany about a decade ago when he pursued TV comedian Jan Böhmermann.

Meanwhile, the MLSA said that Göktaş’s jokes, which prosecutors claim could publicly incite hatred and hostility, targeted fundamentalist Islam—including a reference to women in full‑coverage swimsuits as “divers” and a joke about “suicide bombers who fast.”

Turkey nominally has a secular constitution and guarantees of free speech, yet the EU and the United States have frequently criticized how those standards are applied.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom stated in a 2022 report that Erdoğan’s government increasingly relies on speech‑based prosecutions to silence individuals who express religious criticism, hold beliefs differing from the majority, or engage with religion in a manner perceived as mocking or irreverent.

Edited by: Elizabeth Schumacher

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