1 Oct 2025 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Saudi Arabia, Spotlight
You’re seeing something strange in Riyadh: comedians telling jokes. The posters are up, and the message from the Kingdom is clear: look how fun and open we are now. Mohammed bin Salman wants you to see a nation laughing, and to believe he is the one who set it free.
But I know the truth. I know that in this new, “reformed” Saudi Arabia, the most dangerous thing you can be is a comedian who actually tells the truth.
My crime was satire. From my home in London, I used comedy to poke fun at the crown prince and the absurdities of his rule. The response was a full-scale campaign of transnational repression.
As recently as 2024, we learned just how far MBS would go to silence a critic. The crown prince personally lobbied Lord David Cameron, former UK prime minister and then foreign minister, during a high-level meeting in Riyadh. He did not merely express displeasure; he specifically “pressed for the UK to halt a legal case” I had brought against the Saudi state over its campaign of harassment against me. To make his demand unmistakable, he explicitly “warned that UK interests would be damaged if the case was allowed to proceed”.
Let that sink in. The de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia did not just ask; he threatened a senior British minister. He demanded that the UK government trample its own independent judiciary and abandon the rule of law to serve his personal vendetta against a satirist. When a comedian’s jokes are such a threat that a prince must threaten a foreign power to stop them, it reveals the staggering fragility of his regime.
This is the real state of comedy in Saudi Arabia. The Riyadh Comedy Festival isn’t a celebration of free expression; it’s a carefully staged performance where the only unwritten rule is the most important one: thou shalt not mock MBS.
The comedians on that stage are performing in a gilded cage. They can joke about traffic, perhaps, or annoying family members. But the royal family, the war in Yemen, the imprisonment of activists, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi — these topics are utterly forbidden. The most powerful censor won’t be a government agent in the front row; it will be the fear in every performer’s mind. They know the consequences. They have seen how the state treats its critics.
What the regime is selling with this festival is a lie wrapped in a laugh track. It is a public relations campaign designed to make the world forget about the activists in prison, the dissidents they have murdered, and the exiles like me they continue to hunt. They want you to see a land of laughter, so you stop listening to the screams.
True comedy is subversive. It speaks truth to power. It punctures the egos of the arrogant and gives a voice to the voiceless. A state that cannot tolerate a joke is a state that is deeply insecure and fundamentally weak.
So, as the world sees headlines about the Riyadh Comedy Festival, I ask you to look past the glitter. Remember my story. Remember that for simply telling jokes, the crown prince himself tried to strong-arm a foreign government into abandoning its own laws. In MBS’s Saudi Arabia, the punchline is always prison.
29 Sep 2025 | Americas, Asia and Pacific, China, Egypt, Europe and Central Asia, In the News, India, Iran, Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Newsletters, Russia, United Kingdom, United States
If you want to take the temperature of a nation in terms of free speech just look at how it treats its comedians. Countries with robust human rights records can take a joke, the reverse is the case for dictatorships. Comedy “masquerades as folly, but it can take down an empire” wrote Shalom Auslander in a recent issue of our magazine to explain why joke tellers are so often targets. Which of course brings us to Donald Trump and Jimmy Kimmel. The story gripped us all and exposed both Trump’s thin-skin and the role corporations play today in censorship. Bassem Youssef, an Egyptian-American satirist who had to stop his show in Egypt following significant pressure, responded to the suspension of Kimmel with a quip on X: “My Fellow American Citizens. Welcome to my world.”
Fortunately, the USA is not el-Sisi’s Egypt – yet. Kimmel is now back on air after a public outcry and cancellations of subscriptions to Disney’s streaming services. Turns out, the dollar speaks both ways. Meanwhile, a statue of Trump holding hands with Jeffrey Epstein appeared in Washington this week. The bronze-painted installation, titled Best Friends Forever, depicted the two men smiling at each other. The statue made its point, though not for long. The team behind the statue, called The Secret Handshake, had apparently been granted a permit to have it remain there until Sunday evening. It didn’t last a day.
The UK is struggling with humour too. Last month, Banksy’s mural of a protester being beaten by a judge was wiped from the Royal Courts of Justice almost before the paint dried. Officials cited the building’s listed status, but the speed was telling. In a separate incident a protester holding a Private Eye cartoon was arrested at a Palestine solidarity march in July, satire clearly lost on the police.
It’s worse elsewhere. In Iran, Zeinab Mousavi, one of the first Iranian women to do stand-up comedy, is a frequent target of the authorities. Last month she was charged with making statements that were “contrary to public morality”. In China, a joke about the military led to a comedian being arrested, and the company behind him being fined millions. It was a similar story in India, after a popular comedian, Kunal Kamra, was accused of insulting a local politician. Kamra is just the latest comedian to be targeted, as highlighted by Index.
Reflecting on Kimmel, Russian journalist and dissident Andrei Soldatov offered a warning. Shortly after Vladimir Putin became president in 2000, armed operatives raided the offices of NTV, the network that aired Kukly, a puppet show taking aim at Putin. NTV owner Vladimir Gusinsky was jailed and Kukly disappeared shortly after. Soldatov said at the time many Russian journalists and intellectuals rationalised the attack. A few spoke out though. “You can’t make friends with a crocodile” they said. US executives would be wise to remember this.
12 Apr 2024 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Saudi Arabia
Within a few hours of Ghanem al Masarir accepting the invitation to perform at Index’s January comedy night – an event centred on dissent – the Saudi satirist had sent over a script of what he wanted to say.
It was great – funny, pacey and laced with on-the-nose jokes about Saudi’s Crown Prince that you’d want from a dissident. The only problem was it was a bit short for his allocated timeslot. Could he expand it?
His reply was to pull out of the event entirely. He told me his mental health was in such a state that he didn’t think he could do it. We’d spoken in the morning, a time when he typically feels more robust. By the afternoon he’d been having doubts and was concerned that, as per his current pattern, he’d be unable to muster the strength to perform at a night-time event. My request for a bit more bulk tipped him over the edge.
Al Masarir’s message was disappointing, but it was not unpredictable. The Saudi authorities have been terrorising him for years, in a way that is intended to destroy his mental, as much as his physical, health.
He arrived in the UK in 2003 when he came to study. He was in his early 20s and had no intention to stay, but while he was here he encountered Saudi opposition – a fact that made its way back to Saudi authorities who, in al Masarir’s words, went crazy.
“They wanted to make my life miserable. If you visit Osama bin Laden they’re fine with that, but not if you visit opposition,” he told Index.
Al Masarir said the harassment took the form of trying to discredit his reputation and thereby limit his professional opportunities, as well as illegal actions such as stealing his car (it apparently later showed up in Dubai) and hacking his bank account.
His first job was recruiting students from the Middle East to study in the UK, something he was driven out of after several people he recruited were themselves threatened.
In 2015, al Masarir turned his hand to comedy. He set up a YouTube channel on which he’d post satirical videos, talk show-host style, about the Saudi state. The videos were watched by tens of thousands, mostly from Saudi Arabia – a testament to the hunger in the country for this kind of content (“black messages”, as al Masarir calls them), which he thought would be more effective in their messaging than more formal content.
Throughout this time al Masarir was still in contact with his family. That ended in 2017 following a campaign where he called on people in Saudi Arabia to upload their own videos (which some did, using VPNs to protect themselves). The Saudi authorities promptly pressured his family to cut ties and he hasn’t spoken to any of them since – an obviously painful fact, and one that he says he tries not to think about too much in a bid to stay positive.
I wanted to meet al Masarir, to speak to him face to face. But he is evasive. Then he tells me he rarely leaves his London home.
“I used to go to Hyde Park to walk around. I’d meet people in the city centre. Now I don’t,” he said.
In 2018, al Masarir was outside Harrods in central London when he was badly beaten by men who, it is believed, were hired by the Saudi state. (Citizen Lab confirmed that his phone had been hacked using Pegasus spyware.)
While al Masarir was lucky to get away without anything broken, the same could not be said of his spirit. “They destroyed me emotionally,” he said.
“The UK is a great country and everything is amazing, but I think the UK is too close to the Saudis. You run away from the evil Saudis and they can reach you in the West.”
At the same time, they destroyed him financially, blocking his videos in Saudi Arabia and asking YouTube on occasion to take them down. He said they obliged.
Al Masarir must have had a morsel of strength left, though, because in 2022 he made the unprecedented move of suing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the UK for hacking his phone and for the 2018 assault. He won the case, only to have the Saudis appeal it a year later. They lost, and today al Masarir is awaiting the outcome of the damages they owe him, and he hopes to get what he deserves for what they’ve done to him.
Is there a number that can be put on that? The short answer is “No”.
“I’m now 43. I’ve lost the best years of my life. I don’t think I can get that back,” he said.
His case could help other hacking victims in the UK sue foreign governments who order similar attacks, and thereby dissuade those governments from such conduct.
“I hope it sends a message to not commit these sorts of crimes in a sovereign country. Saudi should not be allowed to do what they have done,” al Masarir said.
On the day of the Index event, my phone buzzes. It’s al Masarir sending over an extra part for the script. He still doesn’t have the strength to perform on stage, but the fact that he can write it – and that he wants others to see it – is something.
You can read the routine that Ghanem planned to deliver here.
12 Apr 2024 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Saudi Arabia
Hey everybody, how’s it going tonight? Good? Awesome! So, I’ve been thinking a lot about dissidence lately. You know, the art of going against the grain, challenging the status quo, and basically being a rebel with a cause. Or without a cause. Because, let’s be honest, sometimes rebellion is its own cause, right?
I mean, who here has ever disagreed with something just for the sake of it? Come on, raise your hands. Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. Dissidence is like the rebellious teenager of adulthood. It’s that little voice in your head saying: “Hey, why not take the road less travelled? It might have better snacks.”
I recently had this realisation that dissidence is like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. And sometimes it gets so strong that you find yourself questioning everything. I questioned my morning coffee once. I asked it: “Are you really the best part of waking up, or is that just a catchy jingle?”
You ever notice how dissidence has its own soundtrack? Like, rebellion comes with its own playlist. The moment you decide to go against the flow, suddenly punk rock becomes your theme music. I once played Anarchy in the UK while doing my taxes. It didn’t make them more enjoyable, but at least I felt like a financial maverick.
Of course, with dissidence comes critics. People who just can’t handle you breaking the mould. I had someone tell me: “Why are you always going against the grain?”
I said: “Have you tried the other side of the bread? It’s pretty delicious.”
But hey, dissidence is not for everyone. It’s an acquired taste, like cilantro or political debates at Thanksgiving.
You know who the real rebels are? People who assemble furniture without reading the instructions. They’re out there, living on the edge, defying the laws of Swedish design. And let me tell you, that’s a rebellion I can get behind. Screw you, Allen key!
Speaking of defying expectations, did you hear about Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to the UK? They were so worried about him carrying a bone-saw that they installed metal detectors at Buckingham Palace. Turns out, the Queen wasn’t a fan of impromptu home improvements.
But hey, let’s not be too hard on them. Maybe they just wanted to make sure he wasn’t planning a surprise visit to the Tower of London gift shop.
And speaking of surprises, have you caught wind of the new Saudi Arabian cooking show? It’s called Dissident Chef. Contestants compete to make the most revolutionary dish without getting censored… The winner gets a lifetime supply of olive oil and a free subscription to Cooking in Exile magazine.
They say the secret ingredient is dissent, but good luck finding that in the spice aisle.
You know you’re in Saudi Arabia when the government hires GPS for its dissidents. “In 500 metres, make a U-turn to the nearest detention centre. Failure to comply may result in unexpected travel plans to a place with less Wi-Fi.”
I heard the Saudi government is introducing a new reality show. It’s called Dissidence Island. Contestants compete to see who can question authority the longest without disappearing. Spoiler alert: the winner gets a one-way ticket to Freedom Island – also known as exile.
In conclusion, let’s celebrate dissidence. Embrace your inner rebel, question the norms and remember that, sometimes, the best way to have the last laugh is by being the one who laughs first. Cheers to the misfits, the contrarians and the ones who refuse to colour inside the lines!
Thank you, everyone! You’ve been a fantastic crowd. And remember, if life gives you lemons, make dissident lemonade. Goodnight!
