Turkish comedian says he has no regrets after 88 days in jail

Turkish comedian Deniz Göktaş has said he never regretted the stand-up performance that landed him in jail for 88 days, telling The New York Times that the experience strengthened his confidence and his commitment to speaking freely.

“Not even one second,” he said when asked whether he had regretted releasing the show. “It was the period of my life when I felt the least lonely.”

In his first interview since leaving prison last month, Göktaş told the newspaper that he had wanted his courtroom defense to encourage other comedians to speak without fear, even after people close to him warned that it could prolong his detention.

“I didn’t want to be apologetic,” he said. “Spending three months in prison is terrible, but I wanted to demonstrate that it isn’t something an artist can’t handle in defense of a principle.”

The 32-year-old was convicted on September 28 of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and publicly insulting religious values. The court sentenced him to just over 19 months in prison but ordered his release pending appeal. It acquitted him of praising crime and criminals.

The prosecution concerned remarks in his second stand-up special, “Ölü Deniz” (Dead Sea), a 90-minute performance that moves between political satire and observations about Turkish society. Its subjects include Erdoğan, jailed İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, religion, nationalism, universities, public protests and the secular children of conservative families.

Behind Göktaş onstage sits a giant replica of his own severed head. He told the Times that the image was intended to evoke a guillotine because the show was built around death and censorship.

One joke described Erdoğan’s evolution from a “shy dictator” into one who had become confident and at peace with himself. Göktaş said he had performed the material across Turkey for three years without facing the same consequences. The special reached a much larger audience after its release on YouTube, attracting 15 million views.

At his trial Göktaş defended political comedy as part of Turkey’s longstanding tradition of satire. His remarks repeatedly drew laughter in the courtroom as he challenged the prosecution’s interpretation of his jokes.

“Dictator is not an insult: it is a political characterization,” he said, arguing that a political comedy show that avoided mentioning the country’s president would have little connection to reality.

He said similar jokes had been made in the past without prosecution and attributed the change to leaders’ declining tolerance of criticism.

His defense also invoked American comedian Lenny Bruce, who was prosecuted over a comedy routine in 1964. Asked by the Times what he drew from Bruce’s work, Göktaş pointed to being true to oneself and retaining a mischievous lack of restraint.

Göktaş was detained at İstanbul Airport on July 2 after returning from a trip abroad and jailed the following day. A court later ordered access to the video blocked in Turkey, citing national security and public order concerns.

In late August a court approved his release, but prosecutors secured a new detention order before he could leave prison. The additional accusation of praising crime and criminals concerned a passage from the same show mentioning the Daltonlar criminal gang. Göktaş denied praising the group, saying the joke criticized crime and violence.

Speaking to the Times, he described how growing success had initially made him more cautious.

“As I got bigger and more established, I had more to lose. I started self-censoring my work. That bugged me,” he said.

He felt that members of his audience, including students and retirees, were showing more courage in their daily lives than he was onstage. He eventually decided to return to saying whatever he found funny, regardless of the consequences.

“It might be a bit romantic, but my first day in the cell, I slept the best sleep of my life.”

Göktaş wrote about 20 minutes of new material in prison that he hopes to perform next year. But one of his first diary entries reminded him not to let the case dominate his future shows.

His prosecution brought renewed attention to Article 299 of Turkey’s penal code, which criminalizes insulting the president. In 2021 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that giving a head of state special protection under criminal law was incompatible with freedom of expression and called for the provision to be amended.

Göktaş said comedy could offer empathy, motivation and the courage to speak, although he did not see it as capable of defeating authoritarianism on its own.

“Ultimately, I don’t think they’re only going after comedians,” he said. “They want to silence everyone.”

Asked about American comedians’ complaints over cancel culture and online attacks, he answered with a joke: “I don’t want to brag, but we have cancel culture — and jail.”