<\/p>\n
ANKARA<\/strong> \u2013 A Turkish court on Friday ordered a comedian jailed<\/a> pending trial on charges of insulting religious values and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan<\/a>, after his stand\u2011up routine included references to him as a \u201cdictator.\u201d<\/p>\n Deniz Goktas was detained Thursday for questioning at Istanbul\u2019s main airport on his return from a trip abroad, days after prosecutors launched an investigation into his comedy show, which had been widely viewed online. He was formally arrested following questioning by prosecutors on Friday, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.<\/p>\n The routine, recorded in Istanbul last month, drew some 9.5 million views after being uploaded to YouTube on June 24. The pro\u2011government newspaper Sabah said dozens of viewers were offended by jokes on religion and filed complaints, prompting the investigation.<\/p>\n During questioning, Goktas, 32, said he had no intention of degrading religious values or insulting the president, stressing that his approach was satirical.<\/p>\n Asked about a quip in which he described Erdogan as having evolved from a \u201cshy dictator\u201d to one \u201cconfident in his identity,\u201d the comedian said the remark reflected a topic widely debated in Turkey, according to excerpts of his testimony published by the rights\u2011focused news portal Bianet.<\/p>\n Insulting the president is a criminal offense in Turkey, punishable by up to four years in prison.<\/p>\n Erdogan has consolidated power during more than two decades in office, and critics say he has steadily narrowed the space for free expression. Journalists and government critics frequently face investigation, detention or prosecution.<\/p>\n Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu<\/a>, Erdogan\u2019s main political rival, has been imprisoned since March last year and is on trial on corruption charges. Hundreds of mayors and other officials from the main opposition party<\/a> are also under prosecution over corruption allegations while the party’s leader was deposed by a court order \u2014 moves critics say are aimed at neutralizing the party ahead of the next elections.<\/p>\n Erdogan\u2019s government insists that Turkey\u2019s courts are impartial and act independently of political pressure.<\/p>\n Dozens of people gathered at the courthouse in solidarity with the comedian on Friday, chanting anti\u2011government slogans, according to the opposition\u2011leaning newspaper Cumhuriyet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.news4jax.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ANKARA \u2013 A Turkish court on Friday ordered a comedian jailed pending trial on charges of insulting religious values and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after his stand\u2011up routine included references to him as a \u201cdictator.\u201d Deniz Goktas was detained Thursday for questioning at Istanbul\u2019s main airport on his return from a trip abroad, days after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2486620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[489627,489628,21741,390260,22814],"class_list":["post-2486619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-deniz-goktas","tag-ekrem-imamoglu","tag-entertainment","tag-recep-tayyip-erdogan","tag-world-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Turkish-comedian-sent-to-jail-to-await-trial-on-charges.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2486619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2486619"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2486619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2486621,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2486619\/revisions\/2486621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2486620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2486619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2486619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2486619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}