Let’s begin with the excellent news: As an train in artwashing, the Riyadh Comedy Pageant was a whole failure. The Saudi regime spends billions of {dollars} selling cultural and sporting occasions in an effort to distract from its infinite human rights abuses. This time, it solely succeeding in drawing consideration to them.
Performers on the occasion, which ran from Sept. 26 to Oct. 9, confronted a torrent of criticism from NGOs and, extra pertinently, from their fellow comedians. Arrested Growth star David Cross wrote, “I’m disgusted, and deeply disenchanted on this complete gross factor,” condemning artists prepared to “condone this totalitarian fiefdom” for an enormous paycheck. British comic Stewart Lee took intention on the “evil, amoral, grifting bastards” taking Saudi cash to carry out.
Let’s begin with the excellent news: As an train in artwashing, the Riyadh Comedy Pageant was a whole failure. The Saudi regime spends billions of {dollars} selling cultural and sporting occasions in an effort to distract from its infinite human rights abuses. This time, it solely succeeding in drawing consideration to them.
Performers on the occasion, which ran from Sept. 26 to Oct. 9, confronted a torrent of criticism from NGOs and, extra pertinently, from their fellow comedians. Arrested Growth star David Cross wrote, “I’m disgusted, and deeply disenchanted on this complete gross factor,” condemning artists prepared to “condone this totalitarian fiefdom” for an enormous paycheck. British comic Stewart Lee took intention on the “evil, amoral, grifting bastards” taking Saudi cash to carry out.
Writing within the Carnegie Endowment, Tulane College Professor Andrew Leber famous that “there was much more dialogue of freedom of speech in Saudi Arabia prior to now two weeks than when the Saudi authorities executed a journalist on national-security grounds in June.” That journalist, Turki al-Jasser, based on-line information outlet Al-Mashhad Al-Saudi (The Saudi Scene) however it’s common data among the many dissident group that the actual motive he was arrested, tortured, convicted on terrorism prices, and executed was his nameless satirical Twitter account poking enjoyable on the regime. Like all dictators, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is petrified of comedians, and having amusing at his expense is a capital crime.
Saudi Arabia is struggling an unprecedented execution disaster. Final 12 months, authorities executed 345 folks. Beforehand, probably the most executions in a calendar 12 months was 196 in 2022. This 12 months, the regime is on tempo to smash its personal blood-soaked document. On the time of writing there have been at the very least 292 executions in somewhat over 9 months.
In 2023, Reprieve and the European Saudi Group for Human Rights analyzed over a decade’s price of execution information. Within the 5 years earlier than bin Salman and his father, King Salman, took energy, the common variety of executions was 71 per 12 months. This 12 months, the regime is on the right track to kill virtually 400—a fivefold improve that is still shockingly underreported.
You wouldn’t hear about this on the competition, after all. Comic Atsuko Okatsuka posted the contract she was supplied (and declined), which explicitly prohibited any comedian materials ridiculing the Saudi royal household, authorities, authorized system, faith, or tradition. Jim Jefferies was dropped from the invoice after a stray remark a couple of reporter “killed by the federal government”—an obvious reference to assassinated Washington Submit columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
The performers who did settle for gave well-rehearsed justifications. Probably the most sincere admitted to being mercenaries. “They’re paying me sufficient cash to look the opposite manner,” stated Tim Dillon. Pete Davidson candidly acknowledged: “I see the quantity, and I am going, ‘I’ll go.’”
Dave Chappelle sought to painting his critics as hypocritical, riffing in his set that “it’s simpler to speak right here than it’s in America.” Whereas there could also be a grain of reality on this when the Trump administration is pressuring networks to take comedians poking the president off the air, in Saudi Arabia, anybody telling the form of jokes concerning the nation’s rulers that received Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert into bother can be in a torture cell quicker than you may say “free speech.”
Different performers insisted that they had noble intentions. Louis C.Ok. claimed the competition was contributing to the “opening up” of a closed society. Omid Djalili put it like this: “Permitting worldwide performances in Saudi, particularly comedy, subtly broadens what’s thinkable and sayable in a society. Each snigger at a taboo topic shifts norms, albeit barely.”
Once more, that is half true. Younger Saudis take pleasure in freedoms their dad and mom dared not dream of, however these come at an especially excessive value, and with strict limits. The enforced social contract between the Saudi authorities and its residents mirrors the contract supplied to performers on the comedy competition: No matter you do, it’s essential to by no means, ever criticize the authorities. U.S. comedians who flouted the phrases have been uninvited; Saudi residents who break the foundations find yourself lifeless.
That is the gaping flaw within the self-interested reasoning of Aziz Ansari, who claimed to have “put plenty of thought into” whether or not or to not seem on the competition. “There’s folks over there that don’t agree with the stuff that the federal government’s doing,” he advised Deadline, “and to ascribe the worst conduct of the federal government onto these folks, that’s not truthful.”
I used to be pressured to flee Saudi Arabia and dwell in exile as a result of I “don’t agree with the stuff that the federal government’s doing.” Turki al-Jasser and Jamal Khashoggi have been killed as a result of they often didn’t agree both. In August, Jalal al-Labbad was executed for the “crime” of attending demonstrations calling for primary human rights when he was 15 years previous. His brother Fadel was executed in 2019, additionally for protest-related offenses. A 3rd brother, Mohammad, is on loss of life row, at imminent danger of execution. In August, his loss of life sentence was upheld, alongside that of kid defendant Youssef al-Manasif—one other child rounded up for allegedly attending a protest, tortured into making a false confession and charged with terror offenses.
Jimmy Carr talks about being a “free speech absolutist,” however has simply been handsomely paid to launder the repute of an authoritarian regime with zero tolerance for dissent. In Saudi Arabia, telling the incorrect sort of joke can have extreme, even deadly penalties. Salman al-Ouda faces a loss of life sentence for “sarcasm and mockery of the federal government’s achievements.”
There have been solely eight executions in Saudi Arabia throughout the two weeks of the competition. I say “solely” as a result of this was a comparatively quiet interval for 2025, by which executions have averaged a couple of per day. Two have been for non-violent drug crimes, two have been for homicide, and three have been for protest-related crimes, together with Mohammed Al-Ammar, who was executed on the ultimate day of the competition, for “terrorism” offenses associated to participating in demonstrations and sit-ins in Qatif, throughout the Arab Spring.
So what ought to artists and athletes invited to Saudi Arabia do? We aren’t saying they have to boycott the dominion: Saudis deserve to look at nice performances and elite sport, and whether or not to carry out there’s a matter of private conscience. However we do say these performers and athletes should include their eyes open, admit they’re serving to to normalize a brutal and repressive regime, and count on to be criticized.
We’d like extra world stars with the braveness of Components One champion Lewis Hamilton, who raced in Saudi Arabia and drew consideration to executions of kid defendants whereas he was there. The boy he talked about, Abdullah al-Howaiti, has been imprisoned since he was arrested and tortured at age 14, and stays on loss of life row. He could possibly be executed at any time.
This week, the most important stars in males’s tennis will likely be in Riyadh for the Six Kings event. In December, main musical acts will carry out at Soundstorm. Now’s the time for his or her friends to talk out and for journalists to ask powerful questions.
If sufficient individuals are prepared to drag again the glittering curtain, to disclose the merciless actuality, these efforts to sportswash and culturewash Saudi Arabia’s repute will fail, identical to the comedy competition. Now, that will be fairly humorous.
