Stand-up comedian Deniz Göktas, 32, was arrested late last week after hundreds of complaints were filed against his YouTube show, in which he described the country's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as someone who had evolved from a "shy dictator" to a person "at home in his identity," according to the AP.
Göktas's show has been viewed around ten million times so far, and on Friday, people protested outside a court in Istanbul. He has defended himself by saying that what he does is satire.
But the arrest is just one of many in recent times. Erdogan has increased pressure on the opposition ahead of the NATO summit. This has led to the arrests of opposition mayors, who are accused of corruption. Since March last year, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, Erdogan's main challenger, has been in prison.
