New Delhi:
Netflix has removed an episode of Hasan Minhaj-hosted Patriot Act in Saudi Arabia, which featured a segment criticising the country’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s alleged involvement in journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The episode will not air in Saudi Arabia but is available elsewhere.
In the episode, Minhaj blames Mohammed bin Salman for Khashoggi’s murder, calling it the “biggest tragedy of the MBS era”, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Minhaj also spoke about how American companies preferred to keep their business ties intact with Saudi Arabia. Netflix, on its part said they received a legal request from the Saudi government to remove the episode from its platform, though the episode remains available on YouTube.
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“We strongly support artistic freedom and removed this episode only in Saudi Arabia after we had received a valid legal request—and to comply with local law,” Netflix US said in a statement.
Minhaj’s show started screening in October and is already very popular. Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, disappeared after he entered the Saudi consulate in Turkey on October 2, 2018, to collect a document for his upcoming marriage to a Turkish woman.
The Saudi government initially said he left the consulate through the back door. Following a global outrage, Riyadh later acknowledged that Khashoggi was killed in a fistfight inside the consulate after an interrogation went wrong.
Turkish media recently reported that people who came out of the consulate were carrying a bag, which according to the reports, contained Khashoggi’s body parts
