Jenna Amatulli - Netflix Takes Down Episode Of Hasan Minhaj’s Show After Saudi Arabia Complains
An episode of “Patriot
Act With Hasan Minhaj” has been removed by Netflix in Saudi Arabia after the
country expressed complaints about material in the show. “Now would be a good
time to reassess our relationship with Saudi Arabia. And I mean that as a
Muslim and as an American,” says Minhaj in the episode titled “Saudi Arabia.” He goes on to discuss
the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed in the
Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in October and was revealed to have been slain on orders from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed
bin Salman. Khashoggi’s body has not been found. The comedian then
addresses the crown prince, referring to him as MBS, by critiquing the United
States’ relationship with him and Saudi Arabia.
“MBS asked, ‘Why the
outrage?’ and frankly, MBS’ confusion is completely understandable. He has been
getting away with autocratic shit like [Khashoggi’s killing] for years with
almost no blowback from the international community,” says Minhaj. Minhaj then lists
example after example of problems in Saudi Arabia, including the imprisonment
of human rights activists and his critics and rising numbers of executions, and
says that the only people who are fully aware of this are the people of Saudi
Arabia, who call Mohammed “Abu Rasasa” ― which translates to “father of the
bullet.”
More posts on Khashoggi's murder
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“We access God through
Saudi Arabia, a country I feel does not represent our values,” says Minhaj,
explaining how problematic it is to pray facing Mecca, the birthplace of the
Prophet Muhammad, in Saudi Arabia. Minhaj then addresses
the Yemen war as “the biggest tragedy of the MBS era.”
Netflix confirmed for the Financial Times that it removed the
episode in Saudi Arabia last week, “after the country’s Communications and
Information Technology Commission made a request to take it down because it
allegedly violated the kingdom’s anti-cyber crime law.”
“We strongly support
artistic freedom worldwide and only removed this episode in Saudi Arabia after
we had received a valid legal request — and to comply with local law,” a
Netflix spokesperson told HuffPost. According to the
Financial Times, Netflix said the Saudi telecoms regulator cited Article 6 of
the law as the reason for the complaint, which states that “production,
preparation, transmission, or storage of material impinging on public order,
religious values, public morals, and privacy, through the information network
or computers” is a crime punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine
not exceeding 3 million riyals (about $800,000). The episode is still
available on Netflix in the United States, and Saudi users can still find it on
the show’s YouTube page.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/netflix-patriot-act-with-hasan-minhaj-saudi-arabia_us_5c2b8947e4b0407e9085ad5d