Turkey on Tuesday night arrested a comedian and a rapper after prosecutors said their online show contained a joke that referred to a hadith, or teaching, of the Prophet Muhammad, which they said could incite religious hatred. An Istanbul court ordered the detention of YouTuber Bogac Soydemir, host of the program “Soguk Savas,” and his guest, rapper Enes Akgunduz, after authorities said the show contained a joke about the hadith “wine is the mother of all evil.”

Prosecutors argued that the joke risked inciting religious hatred. Akgunduz and Soydemir apologized after the broadcast and pleaded not guilty when they appeared in court on Tuesday. Soydemir said his intention was not to incite hatred, adding that he removed the video as soon as he was notified of the matter and apologized on his social media. He said the joke was a comment from a viewer he read live, which he mistakenly took as a pun.

Akgunduz also denied making any intentional insults and said their conversation had been misinterpreted. He added that the joke was a comment read by a viewer, which he took as a simple pun, and admitted that he should have thought more carefully. Their arrest follows the imprisonment of four cartoonists by the weekly satirical magazine Leman for a cartoon allegedly depicting the prophets Muhammad and Moses, which President Tayyip Erdogan described as a “dirty provocation.”/rel