Cartoon by Emad Hajjaj about being a cartoonist.

Cartooning for Peace reports some good news to start the year: the Criminal Magistrate’s Court of Amman (Jordan) has decided to cease the prosecution of cartoonist Emad Hajjaj.

Emad Hajjaj was charged with 'contempt of a president of a foreign country against the provisions of 122/1 of the Penal Code' following the publication of a cartoon about the leader of the United Arab Emirates.

More on the website of Cartooning for Peace.

United Sketches is raising awareness for Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, who was sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes. Sotoudeh, 57, who has represented opposition activists including women prosecuted for removing their headscarf, was arrested in 2018 and charged with spying, spreading propaganda and insulting Iran’s supreme leader.

Here below you can see some of the excellent works by cartoonists that already have drawn in support of Nasrin. If you want to join the campaign, send your cartoon to kianoush@unitedsketches.org

Cartoon by Izabela Kowalska

Cartoon by Phil Umbdenstock

Cartoon by Marco De Angelis

Freedom of humor and satire is an essential component of democratic life; but at the same time, some forms of humor can be a vehicle for hateful or anti-democratic messages. How can we draw a line between free speech and hate speech, when it comes to humor? Answering these questions is particularly difficult in the case of highly condensed (and often ambiguous) forms of visual humor, such as cartoons or memes.

On 21 September 2020, the members of the Constructive Advanced Thinking team Cartoons in Court presented the project they will be working on during the next three years at four European Institutes for Advanced Study. The project focuses on visual humor controversies from an interdisciplinary perspective, with special but not exclusive regard to cartoons. The event featured a general introduction and five short presentations by the team members, followed by an open Q&A.

Speakers: Alberto Godioli (University of Groningen, PI); Vicky Breemen (Utrecht University); Andrew Bricker (Ghent University); Ana Pedrazzini (ECyC IPEHCS CONICET – Comahue National University); Tjeerd Royaards (Cartoon Movement).

Host: Andrey Demidov (scientific coordinator of IAS CEU Budapest)

The project is supported by the Constructive Advanced Thinking (CAT) program, an initiative by the Network of European Institutes for Advanced Study (NetIAS). IAS CEU is a host institution for the 'Cartoons in Court' team. The online event was co-sponsored by Cartoon Movement.

Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI) presents their annual Robert Russell Courage in Cartooning Award to Ahmed Kabir Kishore from Bangladesh.

Ahmed is a cartoonist and activist known to CRNI for over a decade. He campaigned bravely on behalf of the disappeared Sri Lankan cartoonist Prageeth Eknaligoda (2010) and jailed Bangladeshi cartoonist Arifur Rahman (2007) and identified as a CRNI “affiliate leader” in the country, although doing so inevitably led to accusations of aligning with foreign interests. This speaks to his courage, as do his public demonstrations for the human rights not only of cartoonists but also Hijra people and in defence of health and consumer rights and the Bengali language.

Through April and into May of this year Ahmed posted to Facebook a series of cartoons he entitled Life in the Time of Corona, satirising society’s response and critical of the government’s handling of public health during the pandemic.

On May 5th 2020 Ahmed was among several people arrested under the Digital Security Act, 2018 (DSA) by personnel from the Dhaka division of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB-3), the unit officially deployed against terrorists, drug lords and human traffickers but often accused of being an instrument of government suppression. In the ensuing months of detention Ahmed has been denied a bail hearing on three occasions.

Read more on the website of CRNI.

Gargantua by Honoré Daumier (1831)

CM’s editor Tjeerd Royaards writes about the power of satire for 5. The way cartoons are perceived, feared and responded to by leaders, especially those less inclined towards democracy, hasn't changed in the past 200 years. Dictators try to silence satire only because they know it's effective, because they fear it. That's the best reason to keep laughing at them.

Read the full article here.

Image by Marian Kamensky

Online event - 21 September 2020, 15:00-16:30 (CEST Time)

Freedom of humor and satire is an essential component of democratic life; but at the same time, some forms of humor can be a vehicle for hateful or anti-democratic messages. How can we draw a line between free speech and hate speech, when it comes to humor? Answering these questions is particularly difficult in the case of highly condensed (and often ambiguous) forms of visual humor, such as cartoons or memes.

On September 21^st, the members of the Constructive Advanced Thinking team ‘Cartoons in Court’ will present their project and discuss humor controversies from an interdisciplinary perspective, with special but not exclusive regard to cartoons. The event will start with a presentation by the team members, followed by an open Q&A.

Speakers: Alberto Godioli (University of Groningen, PI); Vicky Breemen (Utrecht University); Andrew Bricker (Ghent University); Ana Pedrazzini (ECyC IPEHCS CONICET – Comahue National University); Tjeerd Royaards (Cartoon Movement).

Host: Andrey Demidov (IAS CEU Budapest)

The ZOOM link to the event: here

The project is supported by the Constructive Advanced Thinking (CAT) program, an initiative by the Network of European Institutes for Advanced Study (NetIAS). IAS CEU is a host institution for the team 'Cartoons in Court'. The online event is co-sponsored by Cartoon Movement.

Cartoon by OSVAL

We are back with your monthly dose of cartooning news; read our August newsletter here. August is typically our most quiet month of the year, but September is ramping up to be a lot busier. In the meantime, we do have some new cartoonists to introduce and a save-the-date for an online event about cartoons. We also ask your support for Emad Hajjaj, who was arrested (and now released on bail) in Jordan last week over a cartoon.

If you want to receive a monthly update from the world of international editorial cartooning, subscribe!

Image by Gianluca Costantini

This report is taken from Cartooning for Peace:

Renowned Jordanian cartoonist Emad Hajjaj was arrested by the Jordanian authorities for a cartoon related to the signing of the peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, published by Al Araby and subsequently posted on the artist’s website and social networks. The publication on social networks has since disappeared.

Screenshot from AlAraby, where the cartoon is published. The text in the cartoon reads: 'Israel asks the United States not to sell F35 to the United Arab Emirates'

According to Nidal Mansour, head of the Jordanian Center for the Protection and Freedom of Journalists, the cartoonist was arrested for obstructing the Jordanian Information Systems and Cybercrime Law of 2015. An arrest that Emad Hajjaj’s brother, Osama Hajjaj, a cartoonist himself, confirmed. According to Reporters Without Borders, the publications of online newspapers or those of citizen journalists on social networks are punishable by prison sentences and lead to pre-trial detention in case of prosecution under this law. The cartoonist was taken to a court this morning to be heard.

We join Cartooning for Peace in calling for his immediate release. No artist can be arrested for the realization of a cartoon.

CRNI has posted a comics journalism piece by cartoonist Suhail Naqshbandi to mark the first anniversary of the repeal of Article 370, India’s suspension of the Jammu & Kashmir region’s autonomous status and the subsequent degradation of civil liberty, including one of the world’s longest internet shutdowns.

We recommend you read this essay by Suhail first, describing his experiences prior to the repeal of Article 370. The you can read the full comic here.

This week, Bolsonaro’s Justice Ministry asked the Federal Police and prosecutors to investigate cartoonist Renato Aroeira, because of a cartoon depicting Bolsonaro using a paintbrush to transform a red cross into a swastika.

Cartoonists in Brazil and other countries have made cartoons in solidarity with Aroeira. To show our solidarity, we have collected 10 of our favorite Bolsonaro cartoons here, showing his lack of regard for environment, his misguided approach to the coronavirus and his general incompetence.

Carmelo Kalashnikov - Italy

After the rainforest, Bolsonaro is now cutting down pencils, it seems.

Antonio Rodriguez - Mexico

Cartoonists are often a target of authoritarian leaders...

Rice Araujo - Brazil

...because they expose their shortcomings in one visual. In the case of Bolsonaro, he has been trying very hard to hide the true death toll of the coronavirus in Brazil.

Amorim - Brazil

Although he might just be trying to set a world record.

Anne Derenne - Spain

Of course, would-be dictators do not like to be compared...

Luc Descheemaeker - Belgium

....to other famous examples from history...

Olivier Ploux - France

...or other...

Rice Araujo - Brazil

...pop culture references.

Faditoon - Norway

Also, they don't like it when their mental capacity is questioned.

Vilma Vargas - Venezuela

Vilma Vargas summaries the Bolsonaro presidency as 'darkness and regression', in stead of the 'order and progress' featured on the Brazilian flag.