Dubai-based television network OSN has edited out substantial portions of an episode of John Oliver's satirical news program "Last Week Tonight" after the British comedian made references to Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman being implicated in the 2018 murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
The network's decision to cut out the episode highlighted the continued limits of speech in both the United Arab Emirates, which vowed to allow protests at the upcoming United Nations COP28 climate conference the country would host later this month, as well as Saudi Arabia.
It also highlighted the sensitivity of the death and dismemberment of Khashoggi five years later as Prince Mohammed sought to rehabilitate his image through diplomatic efforts, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
"Criticizing the royal family, criticizing the crown prince in Saudi Arabia is a terrorist offense and you can be prosecuted for terrorism," Democracy for the Arab World Now executive director Sarah Leah Whitson said. "I'm more concerned with the content providers like HBO that are allowing their content to be censored."
Khashoggi founded the organization before his death.
When John Oliver's McKinsey Criticism Hurts the Saud Dynasty
During Oliver's October 22 episode, he primarily focused on the New York-based management consulting firm McKinsey and Co.
The company has worked with Saudi Arabia in recent years, particularly under Prince Mohammed during his efforts to rapidly grow its economy, which involved tens of billions of dollars in spending on massive projects like the futuristic city of Neom on the Red Sea.
"McKinsey now has offices all over the world, and from them they've cozied up to some truly terrible clients," Oliver said. "[They] are so deeply entrenched in the government of Saudi Arabia that Saudi Arabia's planning ministry has been dubbed the Ministry of McKinsey."
Oliver also referred to a Saudi finance summit that McKinsey attended after Khashoggi's killing as a "journalist-chopping business jamboree" and the kingdom as one of the "rootin'-est, tootin'-est journalist-shootin'-est regimes in the Middle East."
Both parts of the episode were a few materials cut out by OSN.
"As with all aspects of our business, OSN complies with the laws of the markets in which we operate, including all content-related compliance across the region," the network wrote in a statement to the AP. "As such, from time to time we make minor content edits."
The Saudi government and representatives for Oliver have not responded to a request for comment, while HBO declined to comment.
Who was Jamal Khashoggi?
Khashoggi was a veteran journalist and royal court insider before fleeing the nation he loved after Prince Mohammed became heir to the Saudi throne. His columns in the Washington Post directly criticized Mohammed's rule.
US and other intelligence operatives have since assessed that a Saudi hit squad killed and dismembered Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on the crown prince's orders, which the kingdom denied.
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