--- title: Turkish Women Can't Stop LOL at Minister's Advice to Stop Laughing description: Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc did not intend his Monday speech on "moral corruption" to get big laughs canonical: https://time.com/3058430/turkey-women-laughing/ author: Dan Kedmey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-07-30T17:44:27.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:02:52.683Z og:title: Turkish Women Can't Stop LOL at Minister's Advice to Stop Laughing og:description: Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc did not intend his Monday speech on "moral corruption" to get big laughs og:url: https://time.com/3058430/turkey-women-laughing/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt28b4546263c51236/69869dc8cd804d5d51ccc2ac/452641040.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TURKEY-POLITICS og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Turkish Women Can't Stop LOL at Minister's Advice to Stop Laughing twitter:description: Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc did not intend his Monday speech on "moral corruption" to get big laughs twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt28b4546263c51236/69869dc8cd804d5d51ccc2ac/452641040.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Turkish Women Can't Stop Laughing at Minister's Advice to Stop Laughing  by [Dan Kedmey](https://time.com/author/dan-kedmey/)  ## Dan Kedmey Jul 30, 2014 5:44 PM UTC  Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc speaks during an interview in Ankara on July 24, 2014, ahead of the presidential election Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc speaks during an interview in Ankara on July 24, 2014, ahead of the presidential electionAdem Alta—AFP/Getty Images  by [Dan Kedmey](https://time.com/author/dan-kedmey/)  ## Dan Kedmey Jul 30, 2014 5:44 PM UTC Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc did not intend his Monday speech on “moral corruption” to get big laughs, but when he advised women to suppress their laughter in public, it landed on the public like a well-crafted punch line. Women in Turkey have since tweeted pictures of their reactions, ranging from grins … … to guffaws. > [](https://twitter.com/vittoriacovella/status/494426906000125952) Over the past three days, hundreds of thousands of people have tweeted under the hashtag #kahkaha, the Turkish word for laughter. Sadly, the Deputy Prime Minister wasn’t joking. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3058430/turkey-women-laughing/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3058430/turkey-women-laughing/"},"headline":"Turkish Women Can't Stop Laughing at Minister's Advice to Stop Laughing","datePublished":"2014-07-30T17:44:27.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:02:52.683Z","description":"A speech on public morals has morphed into a comedy of errors","url":"https://time.com/3058430/turkey-women-laughing/","keywords":["Living","Tech","feminism","Turkey"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt28b4546263c51236/69869dc8cd804d5d51ccc2ac/452641040.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Dan Kedmey","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/dan-kedmey/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt28b4546263c51236/69869dc8cd804d5d51ccc2ac/452641040.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"TURKEY-POLITICS","caption":"TURKEY-POLITICS","creditText":"Adem Alta—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3058430/turkey-women-laughing/","name":"Turkish Women Can't Stop Laughing at Minister's Advice to Stop Laughing"}}]}] ```