Mother Jones
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This week, Funny or Die—Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s comedy website—posted the video (above) in support of Shezanne “Shez” Cassim, an American citizen, former Minnesota resident, and consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers‘ Dubai office, who has been jailed in the United Arab Emirates since April. His crime? Posting his comedy video to YouTube in 2012. The 19-minute video parodies a clique of wannabe-gangster teens in Dubai who take their cues from hip-hop. This earned the 29-year-old amateur comedian a stay at a maximum-security prison in Abu Dhabi, where he awaits his next hearing on December 16. He and eight friends are accused of endangering the Arab country’s security under a newly enacted federal cyber-crimes law. (Here’s where the UAE government stands on other human rights issues, by the way.)
Funny or Die’s video compiles cell phone videos recorded by Ferrell, McKay, Bob Odenkirk, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and other celebrities. “If you start putting people in jail for making videos that you don’t like, then you’re going to have to lock up the The Polyphonic Spree, and that’s no fun for anybody,” says comedian and actor Patton Oswalt. “I’m in a show about politics, and some of our stories are pretty crazy, but even we wouldn’t do a story about a guy being put in jail for eight months because he expressed himself through comedy,” says Tony Hale, of HBO political satire Veep. “It’s one thing to have a bad sense of humor,” says McKay. “It’s another thing to lock people up because of it.”
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How Will Ferrell, Patton Oswalt, and Others Are Trying to Free an American Jailed in UAE
