In late September, comedians caused quite an outcry over the performance of their industry peers at the Riyadh Comedy Festival, a two-week event that ended today in the Saudi capital. Dave Chappelle, Louis Kk, Kevin Hart, Russell PetersHannibal Buress, Jimmy Carr, Whitney Cummings, Bill BurrGabriel Iglesias, Pete Davidson, Aziz Ansari were among the very popular comics who were paid a lot of money by the country's oppressive, human rights-violating government to perform there while David Cross and Marc Maron were among those who condemned the festival participants.
Now that the first year of the Riyadh Comedy Festival and the buzz surrounding it can be brought to an end, arrangement was featured for Soundstorm, a music festival in Riyadh that has been held annually for several years, and has had quite a few big names joining its DJ-heavy bill. Post Malone, Benson Boone, Halsey, Kaytranda, Calvin Harris, Silence, Baby LAROI, Idris Elba, Ava Max, dj snake, Metro Bumin and others will perform from December 11 to 13.
Human Rights Watch The nonprofit has long urged people not to perform at Soundstorm, or at least to use their platform there to speak out against human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia. In the case of the Riyadh Comedy Festival, there were accusations that the government was trying to “comedy-wash” the country's image, which had recently executed journalist Turki al-Jaser for “high treason” (that is, for tweeting against the government) and whose citizens assisted in the September 11 attacks.
