{"id":201361,"date":"2025-10-10T00:06:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T00:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/201361\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T00:06:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T00:06:07","slug":"human-rights-watch-refuses-aziz-ansari-riyadh-comedy-festival-donation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/201361\/","title":{"rendered":"Human Rights Watch Refuses Aziz Ansari Riyadh Comedy Festival Donation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWhile defending his decision<\/a> to perform at the controversial, state-sponsored Riyadh Comedy Festival<\/a> in Saudi Arabia, Aziz Ansari<\/a> said he planned to donate \u201cpart of the fee\u201d to \u201ccauses that support free press and human rights,\u201d listing Reporters Without Borders and Human Rights Watch<\/a>, which has long been critical of the comedy festival and the Saudi regime.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut in a statement to Variety, a spokesperson for Human Rights Watch said the organization \u201ccannot accept\u201d donations from Ansari and other comedians who have \u201cgenerously offered to donate part of their performance fees.\u201d (Jessica Kirson said \u201cI deeply regret\u201d performing at Riyadh Comedy Festival and committed to donating the entirety of her fee to an undisclosed human rights organization.)<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBut while we cannot accept, it is not too late for them to call for the release of detained Saudi activists,\u201d said Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch. She added: \u201cHuman Rights Watch didn\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn September, Shea put out a similar statement<\/a> calling attention to the Saudi Arabian government\u2019s murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. \u201cComedians receiving hefty sums from Saudi authorities shouldn\u2019t be silent on prohibited topics in Saudi like human rights or free speech,\u201d Shea said. \u201cEveryone performing in Riyadh should use this high-profile opportunity to call for the release of detained Saudi activists.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tArvind Ganesan, Human Rights Watch\u2019s head of economic justice and rights division who also oversees the organization\u2019s fundraising policy, tells Variety that HRW is \u201cvery mindful of our independence and objectivity\u201d and cannot take government funding either directly or indirectly. The org is also \u201cvery careful\u201d about private funding as well. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe have been critical of the comedians, including Mr. Ansari, who are performing in Saudi Arabia [because of] the government\u2019s human rights record,\u201d Ganesan says. If the HRW accepted money from those comedians, \u201cit could create the perception that somehow we compromised our independence after the fact.\u201d He adds that to his knowledge, HRW has not been contacted by, nor received money from, any of the Riyadh performers.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn his late-night show on Tuesday, Jimmy Kimmel grilled Ansari for his decision to perform at Riyadh Comedy Festival. \u201cIt\u2019s a pretty brutal regime,\u201d Kimmel said of the Islamic kingdom led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. \u201cThey\u2019ve done a lot of horrible, horrible things.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tAnsari said he \u201cput a lot of thought\u201d into the decision and concluded: \u201cA comedy festival felt like something that\u2019s pushing things to be more open and to push a dialogue. You kind of have to make a choice of whether you\u2019re going to isolate or engage. For me, especially being me and looking the way I do and being from a Muslim background, it felt like something I should be a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Riyadh Comedy Festival ran from Sept. 26 to Oct. 9 and drew a sharp divide between the A-list comedians accepting large sums of money to perform \u2014 including Dave Chappelle, Bill Burr, Louis C.K. and Pete Davidson \u2014 and those who said they turned down offers, like Shane Gillis and Atsuko Okatsuka. (Sources told\u00a0Variety\u00a0that comedian paydays ranged from mid-six-figures up to $1.6 million for one show.)<\/p>\n

\n\tOkatsuka revealed on X that she declined to perform at Riyadh Comedy Festival because \u201cthe money is coming straight from the Crown Prince, who actively executes journalists, [people with non-lethal] drug offenses, bloggers, etc w\/out due process.\u201d She included screenshots of an offer letter including an alleged\u00a0\u201ccontent restrictions\u201d section<\/a>\u00a0meant to prohibit comedians from joking about the Saudi government, legal system or religious customs.<\/p>\n

\n\tDavid Cross\u00a0penned a statement<\/a>\u00a0slamming fellow comedians who participated in the festival, writing: \u201cHow can any of us take any of you seriously ever again? All of your bitching about \u2018cancel culture\u2019 and \u2018freedom of speech\u2019 and all that shit? Done. You don\u2019t get to talk about it ever again. By now we\u2019ve all seen the contract you had to sign.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMeanwhile, many high-profile comedians have defended their decision to play the festival.\u00a0Burr called it<\/a>\u00a0\u201cone of the top three experiences I\u2019ve had,\u201d saying \u201cthe royals loved the show.\u201d\u00a0C.K. said it was a \u201cgood opportunity\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and \u201ccomedy is a great way to get in and start talking.\u201d\u00a0Chappelle quipped<\/a>\u00a0onstage in Saudi Arabia that \u201cit\u2019s easier to talk here than it is in America.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs Human Rights Watch pointed out in a press release on Wednesday, \u201cChappelle has not publicly commented on Saudi Arabia\u2019s human rights abuses.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While defending his decision to perform at the controversial, state-sponsored Riyadh Comedy Festival in Saudi Arabia, Aziz Ansari…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[15892,49,48,75,94662,90968],"class_list":["post-201361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-aziz-ansari","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-human-rights-watch","tag-riyadh-comedy-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}