{"id":2060637,"date":"2025-09-30T22:04:05","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T22:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2060637"},"modified":"2025-09-30T22:04:05","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T22:04:05","slug":"us-comedians-face-criticism-for-participating-at-saudi-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/us-comedians-face-criticism-for-participating-at-saudi-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"US comedians face criticism for participating at Saudi festival"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>U.S. comedians are facing criticism for agreeing to perform at Saudi Arabia&#8217;s Riyadh Comedy Festival.<\/p>\n<p>The star-studded lineup includes Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart and Pete Davidson.<\/p>\n<p>Saudi Arabia has invested heavily in sports, entertainment and tourism in recent years as part of efforts to reshape its global image. However, the country has simultaneously implemented sweeping crackdowns on dissent, journalists and women&#8217;s rights advocates.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the festival events coincide with the seventh anniversary of the assassination of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.<\/p>\n<p><b>IN CASE YOU MISSED IT | <\/b><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scrippsnews.com\/world\/middle-east\/amusement-park-ride-in-saudi-arabia-collapses-and-injures-more-than-20-people\"><b>Amusement park ride in Saudi Arabia collapses and injures more than 20 people<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe seventh anniversary of Jamal Khashoggi\u2019s brutal murder is no laughing matter, and comedians receiving hefty sums from Saudi authorities shouldn\u2019t be silent on prohibited topics in Saudi like human rights or free speech,\u201d said Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch. \u201cEveryone performing in Riyadh should use this high-profile opportunity to call for the release of detained Saudi activists.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bill Burr, who performed at the festival, which runs through Oct. 9, defended his decision to take part, calling it a \u201cgreat experience.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Definitely top three experiences I\u2019ve had,&#8221; Burr said on his podcast. &#8220;I think it\u2019s going to lead to a lot of positive things.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script>\n    window.fbAsyncInit = function() {\n    FB.init({\n        appId : '831625585470146',\n    xfbml : true,\n    version : 'v2.9'\n    });\n    };\n    (function(d, s, id){\n    var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\n    if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;}\n    js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;\n    js.src = \"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js\";\n    js.async = true;\n    fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\n    }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.scrippsnews.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>U.S. comedians are facing criticism for agreeing to perform at Saudi Arabia&#8217;s Riyadh Comedy Festival. The star-studded lineup includes Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart and Pete Davidson. Saudi Arabia has invested heavily in sports, entertainment and tourism in recent years as part of efforts to reshape its global image. However, the country has simultaneously implemented sweeping [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2060638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2060637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/US-comedians-face-criticism-for-participating-at-Saudi-festival.com2F082F0f2Ff973bfa1464e9bdcdeaae30b49182Fa.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2060637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2060637"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2060637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2060639,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2060637\/revisions\/2060639"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2060638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2060637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2060637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2060637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}