Despite the namecheck from Aziz Ansari on Jimmy Kimmel Live! the other night, Human Rights Watch “cannot accept” donations from comedians who have performance remorse over their participation in the Riyadh Comedy Festival in Saudi Arabia. Appearing on Kimmel on Tuesday, Ansari said that he would be donating portions of the money he was paid by the Saudi royal family, whose leader, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, ordered the assassination of Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 [per the Central Intelligence Agency], to organizations like Reporters Without Borders and Human Rights Watch. Alas, while the latter appreciates the comedians who “generously offered to donate part of their performance fees,” they must decline. Unlike the comedians, Human Rights Watch has some standards regarding who it accepts money from. Along with Ansari, comedian Jessica Kirson, one of the three women who performed at the festival, committed to donating her fee to a human rights organization—though she did not specify a cause.
“But while we cannot accept [the money], it is not too late for them to call for the release of detained Saudi activists,” said Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch, tells Variety. “Human Rights Watch didn’t call for comedians to boycott the Riyadh Comedy Festival, but simply asked them to express their support for free speech by urging the release of Saudi activists unjustly imprisoned.”
As of this reporting, none of the comedians have called for the release of the detained activists. Nevertheless, Human Rights Watch did attempt to warn comedians that this whole “accepting money from the Saudi government thing” was a bad idea, and they weren’t, as Jim Jeffries put it, going over there to be “freedom-of-speech machines.” (Jeffries was apparently disinvited from the festival after making comments about Khashoggi on a podcast. Even the freedom-of-speech machine has limits.) In a statement released last month, HRW stated that the Riyadh festival was a means of whitewashing human rights abuses, such as the dismemberment of Khashoggi. “The seventh anniversary of Jamal Khashoggi’s brutal murder is no laughing matter, and comedians receiving hefty sums from Saudi authorities shouldn’t be silent on prohibited topics in Saudi like human rights or free speech,” said Shea. “Everyone performing in Riyadh should use this high-profile opportunity to call for the release of detained Saudi activists.”
Of course, that’s not what happened. After making Shane Gillis look virtuous, the Riyadh comedians returned to tell us how much more chill Saudi Arabia is than we might think, pointing out Riyadh’s many Pizza Hut and Cheesecake Factory outposts. Now, one might say, “But, Bill Burr, you’re not a corporate entity, you’re an artist. Shouldn’t you hold yourself to a higher standard?” They would respond by calling you a “phony” who can’t find Saudi Arabia on a map.
