Human Rights Watch rejects Aziz Ansari donation following Riyadh Comedy Festival
The Human Rights Watch has rejected a donation from comedian Aziz Ansari following his performance at Riyadh Comedy Festival in Saudi Arabia.
Ansari was one of many big names from the comedy world who recently performed in Saudi Arabia for the controversial event. Other acts included Dave Chappelle, Bill Burr, Pete Davidson, Whitney Cummings, Kevin Hart, Russell Peters, and Jack Whitehall.
During a recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live to promote his new movie, Good Fortune, Ansari was grilled about his trip to Riyadh by the host, who said, “It’s a pretty brutal regime. They’ve done a lot of horrible, horrible things.”
In response, Ansari defended his decision by saying, “There’s people over there that don’t agree with the stuff that the government’s doing, and to ascribe like the worst behaviour of the government onto those people, that’s not fair.”
Ansari said he consulted his aunt, who used to live in Saudi Arabia, and revealed his wife told him, “Whenever there’s repressive societies like this, they try to keep things out – whether it’s rock ‘n’ roll music or blue jeans – because it makes people curious about outside ideas, outside values.”
During the appearance, Ansari also pledged to donate part of his fee to Reporters Without Borders and Human Rights Watch.
However, in response to the offer, Human Rights Watch said in a statement to Variety they “cannot accept” the money from comedians who “generously offered to donate part of their performance fees”.
Joey Shea, the Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch, added, “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.”
Earlier this week, Bill Burr took to his Monday Morning Podcast to hit back at “straight-up lies” about his performance at the festival, stating, “I performed in an arena over there, in the round. There was 8,000 people at the show. Okay? It was citizens, and then they had diplomats sitting down front, in a nerve-wracking way for the performer, to make sure that you know, you didn’t talk about the two or three things that they said that they negotiated down to not talk about.”
Never Miss A Scene
The Far Out Film Newsletter
All the latest film news from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.