From the outside, the past few years seemed like the peak of Abdulaziz Almuzani's career.
As head of Saudi Arabia's animation studio, Almuzaiini signed a five-year deal with Netflix in 2020. He helped create “Masameer,” a satirical animated series that Saudi Arabia has called “South Park,” quickly reached audiences around the world. And as recently as months ago, as the conservative Islamic kingdom let its guard down, Almuzaiini was being publicly hailed as one of the homegrown talents shaping its nascent entertainment industry.
But behind the scenes, he was on trial in an opaque national security court, and Saudi prosecutors who accused him of promoting extremism through his cartoon series and social media posts were setting him up to spend the rest of his life in prison or under a travel ban.
Al-Muzaini, a dual U.S.-Saudi Arabian citizen and father of three, explained his plight in a recent video, said he was awaiting the Saudi Arabian Supreme Court's final decision and called on the Saudi leadership to intervene.
“I am ready to endure whatever happens next,” he said in the 18-minute video, reportedly filmed at his home in the Saudi capital.
The video, posted to Almuzai's social media accounts late last month and removed the same day, shows a black-bearded Almuzaiani with greying hair surrounding him speaking in front of a wall covered in colorful sticky notes.
“I have never committed a crime in the Kingdom,” he said. “I have never even run a red light.”
Saudi authorities have jailed hundreds of citizens in a crackdown on dissent that began in 2017. Yet Al-Muzaini's video was striking because he appeared to be in complete good graces with the Saudi leadership, attending government-sponsored events and receiving favorable coverage in state media. Despite the serious charges against him, he was barred from leaving the country but not imprisoned.
His story is the vividest example yet of the dual nature of the new Saudi Arabia, as 38-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman pushes the kingdom toward social opening while deepening political repression. In Al-Muzaini's case, the two trends play out simultaneously, revealing deep dissonance at the heart of the kingdom's transformation.
The New York Times can confirm that the trial took place at Riyadh's Special Criminal Court. Al-Muzaiini was convicted last year of charges including supporting extremism. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison and banned from traveling outside Saudi Arabia for 13 years afterwards. An appeals court upheld his conviction and prison sentence this year, increasing the travel ban to 30 years.
The Saudi government's International Communications Center did not respond to a request for comment. Al-Muzaiini did not respond to an interview request. His lawyer could not be reached. Netflix declined to comment.
In a statement to The New York Times, the State Department said it had been monitoring Almuzaini's case, adding that “our embassies and consulates are committed to ensuring that American citizens overseas have access to a fair and transparent legal process.”
The prosecutors' charges related to the content of a television program Al-Muzani produced a decade ago, when public speech was less restricted in Saudi Arabia, as well as social media posts he wrote.
“I never thought it would get to this stage,” Almuzani said in the video, “especially considering there were people and officials (I won't name names, but I'm grateful) who reassured me that this issue didn't need to get this bad, that if I just hung in there it would be resolved bureaucratically.”
Since Prince Mohammed took power in 2015, he has significantly relaxed social restrictions in Saudi Arabia, lifting the ban on women driving, weakening the religious police, and investing heavily in new sectors such as entertainment and tourism. He has also overseen a widespread political crackdown that culminated in the 2018 murder of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist critical of the monarchy, by Saudi agents in Istanbul.
Prince Mohammed's advisers and supporters sometimes argue a tough stance is necessary to get the country through turbulent times. But Al-Muzaini's case, like others, raises questions about how the kingdom intends to foster the arts, creativity and entrepreneurship — key elements of the crown prince's plan — while curtailing freedom of expression.
“Masameal” started on YouTube more than a decade ago, at a time when cinemas were effectively banned and filmmaking was largely underground.
Through its deliberately absurd storylines, the show is goofy, dark and sometimes vulgar, commenting on various aspects of life in the conservative Islamic kingdom.
“We're trying to satirize a lot of social issues, from the way government functions to the way certain beliefs become prevalent in society,” the show's co-creator Malik Nejer said in a 2017 interview.
“We even laugh at ourselves sometimes,” he added.
From its early days, Massameer's ideology was socially liberal, featuring storylines that mocked the classism, misogyny and religious restrictions that severely defined life in Saudi Arabia at the time.
As the country underwent rapid transformation under Crown Prince Mohammed, the government appeared to embrace Al-Muzaiini's work, even as he faced trial.
After he was convicted and sentenced last year, Al-Muzani attended a celebration hosted by a government agency where officials praised Saudi creators. Since 2021, events and theme park rides based on the “Masameer” characters have been held at Riyadh Boulevard, a state-run entertainment facility in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. And while he continues to appeal his sentence, Al-Muzani appeared on Saudi national television a few months ago to talk about the country's film industry.
The episode celebrated the expansion of Saudi content to international audiences, with a voiceover declaring: “We tell our own story and export it to the world with our narrative.”
Several TV series and two films from the “Masameer” franchise remain available on Netflix in Saudi Arabia, and Almuzaiini's animation studio, Milcot, is midway through a five-year partnership with the streaming service that it signed in 2020.
According to Almuzaiini's video, some of the accusations he faced were related to a 2021 episode of the Netflix spinoff “Masamir County.”
The episode tells the story of a rich, spoiled loner named Bandar who has a craving for ice cream late at night. He goes in search of it, but gets beaten up, abandoned in the desert, and captured by a group of jihadists. He joins the Islamic State terrorist group, and at the end of the episode, the helicopter he's in explodes, and he's thrown into a dream sequence where he finds a fancy ice cream cone.
The episode is openly contemptuous of jihadists and portrays Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who died in 2019, as a vile womanizer.
But Saudi officials pursuing Al-Muzaiani interpreted it to mean “if you fight ISIS and die like Bandar in the ice cream episode, you'll go to heaven,” Al-Muzaiani said in the video. “I don't know how they interpreted it.”
In the video, Al-Muzaiini pleaded with Crown Prince Mohammed for help and said he had tried to resolve the case through various means before going public.
Al-Muzaini's problems began in 2021, when officials from Saudi Arabia's media authority opened an investigation into him and his animation studio for allegedly violating regulations, including “supporting terrorism and homosexuality,” he said in the video.
What started as a regulatory matter has escalated into a criminal trial. In addition to complaints about the content of “Masamir,” Al-Muzaiini said in the video, prosecutors also cited social media posts he made between 2010 and 2014.
Al-Muzaini concluded the video by saying he recently had to close his animation studio and lay off employees, but added that he still has faith in the kingdom's “wise government” and is confident they will get their rights.
After the video was removed, Almuzaiini appeared to remain free and continued to post on social media, including on Tuesday.
In a second video posted on Sunday, Al-Muzaini stressed his loyalty to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its rulers, adding that he had no desire to go anywhere else.
“I will live in this country,” he said, “and, God willing, I will die in this country.”