DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A Dubai-based television network broadcasting across the Mideast cut substantial portions of an episode of the satiric news program “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” over references to Saudi Arabia’s crown prince being implicated in the 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
The decision by OSN highlights the continued limits of speech in both the United Arab Emirates, which has vowed it will allow protests at the upcoming United Nations COP28 climate talks it will host later this month, as well as neighboring Saudi Arabia.
It also highlights just how sensitive Khashoggi’s dismemberment and killing in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul remains over five years later, as Prince Mohammed has sought to rehabilitate his image through diplomatic efforts.
“Criticizing the royal family, criticizing the crown prince in Saudi Arabia is a terrorist offense and you can be prosecuted for terrorism,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, the executive director of Khashoggi-founded group Democracy for the Arab World Now. “I’m more concerned with the content providers like HBO that are allowing their content to be censored.”
Khashoggi, long a journalist, a royal court insider and defender of the kingdom, fled Saudi Arabia after Prince Mohammed’s rise. His columns in the Post directly criticized Mohammed’s rule. U.S. intelligence agencies and others assess a Saudi hit team killed and dismembered Khashoggi on the crown prince’s orders, something denied by the kingdom.
The “Last Week Tonight” episode, which aired Oct. 22, focused primarily on the New York-based management consulting firm McKinsey and Co. McKinsey has worked with Saudi Arabia in recent years, particularly under Prince Mohammed as he pushes a rapid economic transition plan that includes tens of billions of dollars in spending on massive projects like Neom on the Red Sea.
“McKinsey now has offices all over the world, and from them they’ve cozied up to some…
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