A Turkish court in Istanbul on Monday convicted comedian Deniz Goktas of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and insulting religious values during a stand-up performance in June. The judge sentenced him to 19 months in prison but released him pending appeal. The duration of the appeals process remains unclear.
Goktas, 32, was arrested on July 3, a week after posting a YouTube video of his show 'Dead Sea' that garnered nearly 9 million views. He faced charges of insulting Erdogan, inciting public hatred and hostility through jokes about Islam, and praising crime and criminals. Prosecutors cited over 500 complaints, including one from the government-sponsored Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet). Erdogan was named as the sole complainant.
In court, Goktas did not dispute the content but argued his jokes were not crimes. He told the judge: 'Dictator is not an insult: it is a political characterization. As the president and leader of the party that has ruled the country for 25 years, a political comedy show in which Erdogan's name is never mentioned would be neither sincere nor have any connection to reality.' He added that Erdogan should be 'open to the art of satire,' as past Turkish presidents were.
The judge convicted Goktas of insulting Erdogan but downgraded the 'inciting hatred and hostility' charge to the lesser offense of 'insulting religious values.' He was acquitted of the third charge of praising criminality. Goktas has spent nearly three months in pretrial detention, which will count as time served.
Turkey is nominally a secular country with free speech guarantees, but the EU and US have often criticized its application of these standards. A 2022 US Commission on International Religious Freedom report stated that Erdogan's government increasingly relies on speech-based prosecution to 'silence individuals who express criticism in religious terms.' This trial is the latest in a widening crackdown on critics, with hundreds of politicians, artists, journalists, and LGBTQ activists facing detention or trial.
Source: www.dw.com