Sarah Leah Whitson is the former Executive Director of DAWN.
This article is being republished with the permission of the Arts Forum. It was originally published on December 22, 2025.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman's (MBS) state visit to the White House in November 2025 might have been a huge success, as Washington ensconced itself in willful amnesia about the murder of DAWN founder Jamal Khashoggi and the country's deplorable human rights record. But an interview from the Oval Office alongside President Donald Trump pulled everyone back to reality. When a CNN reporter asked MBS about his role in "orchestrat[ing] the brutal murder of a journalist … Why should Americans trust you?" Trump stepped in, "He's done a phenomenal job … things happened, but he knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that. You don't have to embarrass our guest!"
This conversation brought into stark relief the disconnect between the Saudi government's efforts to sanitize its image, with well over $21.6 billion spent on nearly every nook and cranny of the arts world, including music, fashion, comedy, film and cinema, creative and visual arts, theatre and performing arts, heritage culture and museums, gaming and e-sports, literature and publishing, culinary arts, design, architecture and media. The Saudi government has flexed hard on arts and entertainment in particular, funding the Metropolitan Opera, Colnaghi Gallery in Riyadh, Art Basel Showcase, the Al-Ula Arts Festival Featuring Desert X, the Red Sea Film Festival, Edge of Arabia, the Grand Prix Concert, Riyadh's Joy Awards and even an Andy Warhol show.
Several of the comedians tried to justify their participation on grounds that it opened space for free expression in Saudi Arabia.
- Sarah Leah Whitson & Marco McClain
The cognitive dissonance of these massive Saudi investments in so many avenues of free expression and culture contrasts sharply with the naked reality of a brutal dictatorship that gives no quarter to the country's citizens who express their views freely. Even the most modest criticism leads to decades in prison, as the story of young Saudi influencer and fitness enthusiast Manahel al-Otaibi highlights. A Saudi court sentenced her to 11 years in prison, reduced to five years on appeal, for a few tweets advocating for women's rights and freedom from the country's regressive "guardianship" system.
Nothing triggered more popular outrage, however, than the participation of American comedians and artists in the Riyadh Comedy Show this year, suggesting that the plebeian masses are not so easily fooled by such arts-washing. The star-studded lineup reportedly received guidelines from the Saudi government on permissible joke topics; but the ample fees, ranging from $375,000 to $1.6 million, bought willing compliance. Many of the comedians have been outspoken in their commitment to free speech yet performed for an audience who could be prosecuted for saying some of the same lines. This brought attendees such as Dave Chappelle, Louis C.K., Pete Davidson, Whitney Cummings, Bill Burr, Jimmy Carr, Mo Amer, Aziz Ansari and Bobby Lee under such intense international scrutiny that many had to backtrack. Ansari even pledged to donate his earnings to Human Rights Watch (the organization declined the gift).
Several of the comedians tried to justify their participation on grounds that it opened space for free expression in Saudi Arabia, avoiding the fact that their paychecks came from the abusive government itself. Ansari, speaking on Jimmy Kimmel's late night television show declared, "To me, a comedy festival felt like something that's pushing things to be more open and to push a dialogue." Dave Chappelle commented, "Right now in America, they say that if you talk about Charlie Kirk, that you'll get canceled. It's easier to talk here than it is in America." Only one comedian expressed remorse for participating in the show: Jessica Kirson. In a statement, she said, "I would like to express my sincere regret for having performed under a government that continues to violate fundamental human rights." Still others who did not participate condemned the event: "From the folks that brought you 9/11, two weeks of laughter in the desert. Don't miss it," said Marc Maron. "You've just shown that you can be bought too, that everybody can be bought," said Luisa Omielan.
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- Sarah Leah Whitson & Marco McClain
So what responsibility, exactly, do artists, comedians, actors and others in the arts field have when doing business in a dictatorship that punishes free expression? Should artists be encouraged to bring even a sprinkle of artistic expression to a literal desert of freedom?
These are not mere hypothetical questions. In fact, the answers are clearly spelled out under international law, which provides a framework for the human rights responsibilities of business actors — including individual artists — designed to avoid their complicity in the human rights abuses of their business partners and ensure that they are neither benefiting from, nor contributing to, such abuses. The United Nations' "Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights" (UNGP) mandates that businesses "avoid causing or contributing to adverse human rights impacts through their own activities." It requires them to carry out robust due diligence to identify, prevent and mitigate harmful impacts; enable a remedy for harms; and even consider ending their business relationships if they cannot prevent contributing to, or benefiting from, abuses. They must "know and show" their impacts, go beyond mere legal compliance, and engage in dialogue with affected stakeholders.
What this means for artists (including the funny men and women at the Riyadh Comedy Festival) is that they have, at a minimum, a duty to assess whether their lucrative dealings with the Saudi government contribute to or benefit from Riyadh's human rights abuses. The "benefit" side of the ledger is fairly clear, as the entities that paid them — the government's "General Entertainment Authority" and the trillion-dollar, MBS-controlled "Public Investment Fund" (PIF) operating under its subsidiary, "Sela" — are abusers themselves. Indeed, much of the PIF's assets constitute ill-begotten gains from one of the largest government shakedowns in history, when MBS detained, tortured and forced hundreds of business leaders in the country, accused (but not convicted) of corruption, to turn over their wealth to the fund. There is also a strong argument that the participating comedians themselves contributed to abuses by participating in an arts event designed to sanitize and distract from the Saudi government's oppression and abuse of its own citizens.
Engagement in cultural, educational and artistic activities in Saudi Arabia is not the problem. All creative engagement can and should be a net positive for the Saudi people and artists around the world who engage and interact with them. Rather, the problem is engagement with (and compensation from) the Saudi government itself. Just as Western artists would likely reject a paycheck from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un or Russian President Vladimir Putin, considering their horrible human rights records, it should be no more acceptable to take a paycheck from the Saudi dictator. In doing so, they are complicit, just as Trump was complicit in the Oval Office on Nov. 18, 2025, defending the Saudi government's deliberate strategy to silence criticism. Artists and artistic institutions should commit not only to upholding the most basic human rights responsibilities of businesses, but also consider that, as stewards of free expression, they have a heightened duty to avoid helping abusers whitewash their horrific violations.
The views and positions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of DAWN.
