Riyadh comedy festival criticized by Marc Maron, Human Rights Watch: NPR

Saudi Arabia is not known as a comedy center. But until October 9, the country’s capital, Riyadh, welcomes dozens of actors on list A – a lot of Americans – at the first Riyadh comedy festival.

The participation of Big-Name Funningmen, including Dave Chappelle, Aziz Ansari, Kevin Hart and Jimmy Carr, provoked criticism from his comedian colleagues, notably Marc Maron, Shane Gillis and Stavros Halkias, as well as human rights groups and other commentators.

“The Saudi government uses the Riyadh comedy festival … to divert attention from its brutal repression of freedom of expression and other ubiquitous violations of human rights,” said Human Rights Watch in a statement this week. “The participating actors, to avoid contributing to the money laundering of the Saudi government, should use the Comedy Festival to publicly urge the Saudi authorities to unjustly release Saudi dissidents, journalists and human rights activists.”

A recent report by the American State Department on the human rights file in Saudi Arabia in 2024 listed abuse, in particular “arbitrary or illegal murders, disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, and serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media freedom”, among other questions.

Cutting of actors

In a video On the Instagram channel of Maron, the host of the Podcast WTF targeted colleagues who registered to perform at the festival, while referring to the allegations of the possible participation of the Saudi government in the attacks of September 11 and its role in the murder of journalist 2018 Jamin Khashoggi.

“People who brought you on September 11. Two weeks of laughter in the desert, don’t miss him!” The same guy who will pay them is the same guy who paid this guy to the bone ball Jamal Khashoggi and put him in an AF *** suitcase. But don’t let it stop the Yucks, it’s going to be a good time! “

Gillis and Halkias were both invited to perform during this event, which was announcement In July by the president of the general authority of entertainment Turki Alshikh. On podcastGillis said he had refused an “important bag” to perform during the event. “I took a position in principle,” he said. In a podcast conversation With Chris distefano, Halkias said “can’t do it”.

Another actor distefano, on the other hand, told Halkias that he had accepted the invitation: “I did not want to do it either,” he said, adding that it was his wife who exhorted him to take the money.

The game of Saudi Arabia

NPR has contacted representatives of almost all participating actors to comment, as well as the Saudi Embassy in Washington, DC, and the general entertainment authority of the country. No one had answered at the time of publication. However, in its declaration announcing the event, the General Entertainment Authority described the festival as “the largest of the genre worldwide”, adding that it “reflects the efforts to amplify the status of Riyadh as the main destination for major cultural and artistic events”.

As a nation strongly dependent on oil, Saudi Arabia is currently engaged in a plan to diversify economically, socially and culturally. It is Vision 2030 The program, implemented in 2016, encompasses efforts to increase the visibility of the country on the cultural scene. “Vision 2030 is a plan that diversifies the economy, empowers citizens, creating a dynamic environment for local and international investors and establishing Saudi Arabia as a world leader,” said the website.

A story of hindsight

The Riyad Comedy Festival has not been the first time that artists have inspired the return of flame for accepting invitations to participate in events in Saudi Arabia.

The big acts of pop music, notably Mariah Carey, the Black Eyed Peas and Justin Bieber have all been criticized for having chosen to perform in the country in recent years. “Does she not know that Saudi Arabia is one of the most repressive and deadly regimes on the planet?” wrote the code of the Pink activism group in a 2019 statement Calling Carey to cancel his program that year.

And American visual artists who have exposed their work to Desert X Ansla, a spin-off of the United States Desert X The art festival in the Saudi desert, as well as the event organizers, were also criticized. In 2019 article,, Los Angeles Times The art critic Christopher Knight called the “morally corrupt” show. Knight added: “Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy built on theocratic law. Freedom of expression is prohibited. An illegal act.”

The actor Tim Dillon said on his podcast last month that he had signed up for financial reasons. He said he was offered “a large sum of money” – $ 375,000 for a performance – and said other actors had been offered up to $ 1.6 million. He told his detractors to “recover”, adding, “then and if they had slaves, they pay me enough to look in the other direction.”

But in an episode of the Podcast Tim Dillon last week, the actor announced that he had been withdrawn from the programming for the comments he made on the country’s record on slavery. (NPR has contacted the general entertainment authority of Arabia for verification, but has not yet heard.) “I approached it in a funny way and they have pulled me,” said Dillon on his podcast. “I was certainly not going to introduce myself to your country and insult the people who pay me money.”