Saudi festival of comedy - a sick joke

source: BBC

I stumbled across a video by Breaking Points about the festival where they are paying a fortune to persuade famous comedians from around the world to perform in Saudi.

Human Rights Watch said:
“Comedians performing in Riyadh should speak out against Saudi Arabia’s serious rights abuses or they risk bolstering the Saudi government’s well-funded efforts to launder its image.” Shea said. “This whitewashing comes amid significant increase in repression, including a crackdown on free speech, which many of these comedians defend but people in Saudi Arabia are completely denied.”

As a condition of getting paid, comedians must agree to rules on what they can say (see below).

Many comedians have taken the "blood money" and will go and perform.  The reasons they give for their decision are summed up by Seth Simons in his post: 
"What I have gleaned—and this may shock you—is that they [the comedians who are going] are greedy amoral narcissists who don’t believe in anything, let alone what they claim to believe, and who sneer at the very idea of maintaining any sort of personal value system." 

Simons summarises the justification a comedian gave: "Other people are amoral hypocrites, therefore it is okay for me to be an amoral hypocrite."  "What a wonderful, versatile principle!", said Simons of this comedian's rationale.

Simons says of one comedian's reason for going: "Distefano said he didn’t want to take the gig, but his wife told him to.", a view the comedian contradicted, later.

"Distefano said he was questioning whether he should do the festival. Fortunately, Halkias was there to reassure him (again) that all showbiz money is blood money." 

Simons concluded by saying: "There you have it! All society is propped up by rapists and war criminals, so there’s no point in trying not to associate with or profit from or otherwise whitewash great acts of evil by powerful people or states."

"Obviously this is all extremely bad and damning in its own right, but it also makes one wonder whether there is any level of state-sanctioned horror these comedians will not metabolize for the right price. I hope we never have to find out. " 

One comedian who took the money, but was later fired and so did not go to the festival, said of his decision to take the money: ""They're paying me enough money to look the other way,” (Tim Dillon).

Human Rights Watch's article of 23 Sep 2025 includes the appalling human rights abuses by the Saudis.  It said this of Brit comedian Carr who took the money: "Carr has often vigorously defended free speech publicly. “I am a huge free speech absolutist, but it is not freedom from consequences,” "

People who are critical of the comedians, have said:

"A lot of these comedians have been huge defenders of free speech, and to go and perform in Saudi Arabia, where free speech is so heavily curtailed, is extraordinary. It's morally repugnant."

"The same guy that's gonna pay [the comedians] is the same guy that paid that guy to bone-saw Jamal Khashoggi and put him in a [expletive] suitcase," said US comic Marc Maron, in a standup clip that appears to take aim at Mohammed bin Salman.

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