CARTOONISTS RIGHTS NETWORK INTERNATIONAL

Ramón: “I never felt alone, but cannot forget the moans of people who were being tortured.”

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In a letter CRNI’s Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award winner for 2017, Ramón Nsé Esono Ebalé extends his thanks to all who supported him during his recently ended imprisonment and provides a harrowing account of life inside Malabo’s notorious Black Beach Prison.

June 2018

Dear friends,

Thank you for your support and encouragement during a difficult period in my life.

I never felt alone, as I knew you believed in me and defended my innocence, even though you did not know me. I owe you more than even I can imagine.

While the past eight and a half months in Equatorial Guinea have been a nightmare for me, your advocacy, your art, and your positive thought all helped me remain hopeful.

I’m grateful for your commitment to justice.

After all charges were dropped against me, and once I was released from Black Beach prison, I was very happy. I knew I would finally hug my daughter and wife again. I had not seen them for six months, and parts of me were dying as the days went by. My son, who directly experienced the nightmare with me never gave up hope, despite his youthful age. He joined the advocacy for my release and learned first hand that one can never be indifferent to injustice.

In prison I met many people unjustly convicted and forgotten by the judicial authorities. Thirty or more inmates filled cells built for two prisoners. I still vividly remember the cries of my prison companions on November 28th as they were being horribly tortured by armed and masked guards. That day the torture lasted for four long hours, from 3:00 to 7:00 p.m., when the guards finally got tired of beating them. I also cannot forget the moans of people who were being tortured in “Guantanamo,” the central jail where I was detained before I was transported to Black Beach prison. In Black Beach three people were left to die when the guards denied them medical attention. Others, companeras and comparers of the Ciudadanos por la Inovación political party, were referred to by the nickname of “broken hands,” given what the intense torture sessions had done to their limbs. I saw them in Black Beach before they were transported in metal cargo containers to the city of Bata. It is a painful and very personal realisation that there is no justice in today’s Equatorial Guinea. I will never forget my prison companions, as I understand that while my life was spared and my freedom secured thanks to the networks that brought you and I together, most people in my country do not have this luxury.

I kept myself busy in prison by drawing on cardboard scraps with the only pen they allowed me to have. Now I have access to endless amounts of paper and dozens of pens, pencils, and markers. I plan to use this larger arsenal to shine a light on the injustices and impunity that still besiege my country.

What you did for me, we can now do again for many others in my country. So, I am asking you to continue supporting me, EG Justice, and some courageous lawyers in Equatorial Guinea, as we work to free other political prisoners and hold government officials accountable for corruption. I do not have economic means, but now, with you and my pencils, I feel I have both the moral strength and the necessary resources to make a difference. Together, let’s keep alive the hope that many others in Equatorial Guinea will be free and they too can again hug their children and spouses.

Nothing would make me happier than turning Black Beach into a museum for human rights to commemorate those who perished and those who continue to suffer gross injustices in that prison.

In Solidarity,

Nsé Ramón

Ramón’s story exemplifies bravery in the face of extreme threats. We will recognise another courageous cartoonist later this year. To submit a nomination for the 2018 award click here.

Please support EG Justice as they continue to work on behalf of the Black Beach prisoners.

To Report a Cartoonist in Danger  Email Cartoonists Rights Network

Cartoonist Pedro Molina’s View on the Violence and Political Crackdown in Nicaragua

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Cartoonists often complain that politicians are unfair competition because they can be crazier than our cartoons. This is particularly true in Nicaragua, where I live and work as a cartoonist.

We have a government formed by a married couple: President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo. The only time they venture out of “El Carmen,” their private housing complex, is for ceremonial events that are covered by most television and radio media in the country, which, by the way, they own.

Despite calling themselves “socialist revolutionaries,” the Ortega family are actually multimillionaires (thanks to Venezuela’s oil business) with a special taste for things like Mercedes Benz cars, Rolex watches and caviar. Our first lady, Murillo, the most extravagant of the duo, has filled the country with huge ridiculous metal “trees” she calls “Trees of Life” at the price of $ 25,000 each; we have hundreds of them! In the second poorest country in Latin America!

As you can imagine, Nicaragua was a cartooning paradise, with lots of potentially funny material for political cartoonists like me … until April 18 of this year.

After several years of suffering electoral frauds, curtailment of rights, selective repression, attempts to censor the internet and mismanagement of environmental disasters, the last straw was the enactment of the country’s social security law that curtails the rights of current and future pensioners.

Protests began timidly in a country where protests, however small, are crushed by mobs like the JS-19 (a paramilitary arm of the government) and the police. This time, the killing of college students made peaceful protests spread like a wildfire. Dozens were killed while Ortega’s wife, in the style of George Orwell’s Big Brother, referred to war as “peace” and violence as “love.”

Protests and killings continued. May 30 is national Mother’s Day in Nicaragua. People took to the streets to honor the mothers of all the victims of the repression since last April (numbering 86 dead at that time). The Mother’s Day march became the biggest public demonstration against this government, ending when the paramilitary and police forces of Ortega and Murillo opened fire against the crowd. It was a massacre.

At the time I write this, the number of protesters killed by the regime since April 18 is over 146. It is clear that Ortega and his wife, after 11 years in power, will not resign by their own will.

There are brutal regimes around that world, why should Americans care about Nicaragua?

In early June, Nicaraguans were expecting the General Assembly of the Organization of American States to deliver an energetic condemnation about the massacre conducted by Ortega’s goons. Surprisingly, we learned that the Ortega regime and the Trump administration made some type of agreement on a softer statement, avoiding the stronger condemnation that was needed and expected.

The question is why. Why is president Trump doing favors for a thug like Ortega? Is this another favor from Trump to Ortega’s comrade, Vladimir Putin? Is it because Trump identifies with an egomaniac that clings to power no matter what? Is it in exchange for support from Ortega against Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela?

There are many questions, but few answers.

I hope these questions find a way into Americans’ hearts and minds. Why is Trump aligned with a genocidal leader like Ortega? Congress is discussing Nicaragua now, and readers can take action to help us stop the killings. Please call your representatives in Congress and urge them to care about Nicaragua. Why? Because of our shared humanity; or perhaps because instability in Central America could mean many more immigrants trying to get into the USA soon. Please call your congressman and spread the word that what is happening in Nicaragua is NOT a war; this is an armed state murdering unarmed citizens.

 

– Pedro Molina, editorial cartoonist, Nicaragua

This was originally posted at http://caglecartoons.com/column.asp?columnID=%7B5E7703E1-B85A-441F-ABBE-D82CD03CCB65

Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award 2018: Nominations Open

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Cartoonists Rights Network International calls for nominations as we prepare to present our annual Courage in Editorial Cartooning award.

CRNI presents this award to a cartoonist who has demonstrated exceptional courage in the face of overwhelming threats while pursuing their right to free speech as defined by Article 19 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

Please send your nomination to CRNI Executive Director Robert Russell at director@cartoonistsrights.org with “Annual Award” on the subject line — or click here:

Email us your Courage Award nomination

The email should contain a brief description of the threats and/or censorship faced by the cartoonist. If possible, please include contact information for the cartoonist. The cut-off date for nominations is Friday, July 20th at 17.00 EST

CRNI’s Board of Directors will consider the nominees and select a recipient. The 2018 Courage in Editorial Cartooning award will be presented on September 22nd during the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists annual convention in Sacramento, California.

Read about previous Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award Winners

Note: CRNI does not award a specific cartoon for its excellence and is not seeking cartoons about freedom of expression or threats to it.  We recognise a cartoonist who is under threat or attack themselves.  Therefore CRNI makes no comment on the quality or intent of a specific cartoon. However CRNI will not consider cartoonists whose work advocates violence, promotes hate, or encourages racism, sexism and/or bigotry.

Last year’s winner was Ramón Nsé Esono Ebalé – Jamón y Queso – whose wife and daughter accepted the award on his behalf while he remained a prisoner in Equatorial Guinea. Ramón is now free.

To Report a Cartoonist in Danger  Email Cartoonists Rights Network

Joel Pett interviews the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Rob Rogers and asks why he objects to having his cartoons “pre-filtered through the sensibilities of humorless corporate lickspittles whose livings depend on not rocking the boat…or the ship of state.”

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A cartoonist is jailed. Another is charged with treason. A cartoonist disappears. Another is threatened by government goons. Throngs march against a perceived cartoon’s slight.

That’s how it goes among CRNI clients around the world, but not here. In corporate America, cartoonists merely lose their livelihoods. I’m not comparing unemployment to incarceration, but with those livelihoods go the paychecks, the health care, the secure retirements, the legal protections, and a lot more.

Strident, no-holds-barred newspaper editorial cartooning, spiraling into inexorable death throes for at least two decades, bleaches into a pile of bones on a changing media landscape, all due to uncertain advertising economics, right?

But what if it’s worse? What if losing our jobs is more than a lamentable byproduct of the well-documented industry convulsions that have also sidelined armies of shoe-leather reporters, photographers, copy editors, art critics, columnists, and on and on?

What if editorial cartoonists were not just victims of economic hard times, but unabashedly discarded for challenging the country’s leadership and direction? And what if this happened to mainstream cartoonists, at big-city dailies, during an administration which has expressed admiration for thug regimes around the globe and promoted policies akin to tin-pot dictatorships?

It just happened to Rob Rogers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. CRNI board chair Joel Pett spoke to him about it.

Pett: Hey Rob, anything new?

Rogers: (laughs) Nothing much.

P: So, I need to interview you for CRNI, but haven’t the patience or training for transcription, so suppose you just share your thoughts and I’ll back-load questions to which they make reasonable answers?

R: (chortles) That sounds fine.

P: You’re familiar with CRNI, and have been a generous supporter. How much of a stretch is it to put you somewhere on the spectrum of persecuted cartoonists?

R: Well, I got the news from corporate HR drones, not jackbooted brutes. So there’s that. And I’ve been trying to explain to some of my friends and supporters that this isn’t exactly censorship.

P: Because you can still say what you want, just not in the pages of the Post-Gazette?

R: Right. I can post them on bulletin boards and staple them to telephone poles!

P: Sure, or the internet equivalents. But you see why your followers find it heavy-handed?

R: Of course, and I appreciate their backing.

P: I saw that the mayor of Pittsburgh publicly supported you, that there were protests at the paper, and, of course, the cartoonists are righteously outraged.

R: Well, according to John Robinson Block, outrage isn’t an attribute you want in a cartoonist.

P: Block is the publisher who fired you?

R: Yeah.

P: Would you like to publicly excoriate him in some deeply personal and expletive-littered manner right now?

R: (chuckles) No, but there were sure aspects of this that he deserves to be ashamed of.

P: Like?

R: Well, for a start there were those widely-scorned racist editorials. I knew then that this wouldn’t end well.

P: They offered you a freelance arrangement right?

R: A truly terrible one. Paid virtually nothing and required me to hatch ideas in concert with management.

P: You know, creatives do their best work when it’s pre-filtered through the sensibilities of humorless corporate lickspittles whose livings depend on not rocking the boat. Or the ship of state.

R: Ha! Right!

P: So, now what?

R: Well, I’ll still draw for my syndicate clients and I’ve had some encouraging freelance offers. It’ll work out.

P: I saw the Sunday New York Times ran a piece you wrote about all this. Since they don’t print editorial cartoons at all, but somehow just managed to garner the Pulitzer for cartooning, maybe they could use you?

R: (snickers) I’d work for half of what Tom Friedman gets.

P: You’d work for a quarter of it. Thanks for taking time. I’ll call you in a few days, when the media blitz has died down and you’re on the verge of despair.

R: Thanks.

UPDATE: an equally wry cartoon strip penned by Rob about his recent and much-publicized change in circumstances is available at The Nib.

Interview: Saba’aneh on the “red lines” for a Palestinian cartoonist

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CRNI Executive Director Dr. Robert Russell speaks with our Regional Representative for Palestine, cartoonist Mohammad Saba’aneh following his recent detention by Israeli border guards and confiscation of artwork.

Russell: To your knowledge are there other cartoonists in Palestine or Israel who are being harassed, questioned or worse from any of the major players in the conflict: PLO, Hamas, IDF et al?

Saba’aneh: Yes, one of my friends, Osama Nazzal, was under investigation from the IDF because of his cartoons. Ismael Albazem, a cartoonist from Gaza was arrested by Hamas because he did a lot of cartoons criticizing Hamas movement. Actually, I am the only one who has faced pressures from all sides at the same time.

R: What are the “red line” rules for a cartoonist working in Palestine right now? Have these red lines changed at all since President Trump named Jerusalem as the location for the new US embassy?

S: There is no relation between Trump’s decision and the red lines in Palestine. Always our critical red line is the portrayal of religion and the sensitivities of any political party which has nominated that religion as a strategy and title for them, like Hamas and Al Jihad.  I faced a big campaign against me, organised threats via mobile phone calls because I did a cartoon criticizing one of these parties.  I think this political party converted its faithful into a tool of censorship under the name of religion.  They became a “holy” political party and the people deal with them as if God’s Representative.

R: Focusing on your case: do you think the authorities will return the tapestry cartoon that they seized from you last week?

S: Certainly not. I think Israeli security understood the value of cartoons after Charlie Hebdo and how the world engages with and respects this art form. Israel started attacking cartoonists by many means; arresting them, investigating and accusing them of anti-semitism. That happened recently with a German cartoonist, not just Palestinian cartoonists. I am sure the Israeli security forces will take further action against me. I do not know what exactly, but they are escalating against me and the art of cartooning. The problem is I am the only cartoonist working in Israeli-controlled Palestinian territory.

R: Would it help if we wrote a letter, admittedly I don’t know exactly where we would send it, encouraging the return of your property?

S: I think if I scale up any protest and demand they give me the print back it will only encourage them to ban me from travel.  I should be careful with them, this is not the first time they did some things against me but this time I chose to talk about it publicly.

R: What are the media outlets in the Middle East/Palestine that you trust to tell the truth, or what might be closest to the truth on all sides?

S: In terms of the Arab situation I do not trust many. Mostly I try to get my information and news from BBC and CNN.

R: Are other artists, dramatists, singers, or any other kind of arts professional also getting criticism? Are any of them being threatened or are they under any danger? If so, who are they?

S: In addition to Nazzal and Albazem… Graffitti artist Hamza Abu Ayyash because of an image on his Facebook page. Majida Shahen, cartoonist, she did a cartoon against Al Jihad Al Islami and they threatened her with death.

R: Do you want to continue to run cartooning workshops?

S: Yes sure, later in the summer I’ve arranged a short workshop for special needs kids under the name of CRNI.

R: Thank you for your continuing dedication and courage, Mohammad.

 To Report a Cartoonist in Danger  Email Cartoonists Rights Network International

Cartooning for Peace condemns sacking of German Cartoonist

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From Cartooning for Peace’s press release:

Cartooning for Peace protests against the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s
dismissal of the German cartoonist Dieter Hanitzsch because of the
following cartoon published in the same newspaper on 15 May
2018.

It represents Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an outfit and decorum
referring to Israeli singer Netta Barzilai’s victory at Eurovision 2018. He pronounces
the sentence “Nächstes Jahr in Jerusalem!” (Next year in Jerusalem!), tweeted by the
leader of Israel following the victory.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is up to each person to make his or her own idea and judgement, according to his
or her experience, opinions and individual knowledge. Dieter Hanitzsch, who says he
made this drawing to criticize current Israeli policy and the exploitation of his
compatriot’s victory, explains its aim in an interview with the newspaper Dresdner
Neueste Nachrichten.

Kurt Kister, the newspaper’s editor, while acknowledging from the outset that in his
view the cartoonist he has known for a long time is neither racist nor anti-Semitic,
reacted to the decision in an article published on the newspaper’s website2.
While he does not consider the cartoon as being anti-Semitic, he shares the many
individual and public criticisms and attacks that detect a series of anti-Semitic
stereotypes and clichés in the cartoon that, even if not knowingly used for this
purpose, would be likely to be understood as anti-Semitic or feed into such discourse.
In this context, the Stürmer is even mentioned, a newspaper pushing the Nazis’ anti-
Semitic obsession to its extremes. As for the newspaper’s second editor, Wolfgang
Krach, like his colleague, maintains that the drawing could be interpreted as anti-
Semitic. He added that this had been the subject of internal and external debate and
that the decision to dismiss would be motivated not only by the design but also by
subsequent exchanges with its author. He apologized on behalf of the newspaper
and promised to review his editorial procedures to avoid further controversy.
In a nutshell: a cartoonist who, more or less, no one considers anti-Semitic, is
nevertheless dismissed in dishonourable conditions.

Cartooning for Peace deeply regrets the newspaper’s decision to dismiss the
cartoonist for this cartoon as a result of public pressure. Cartooning for Peace also
regrets that the newspaper does not take even greater collective and editorial
responsibility for the newspaper and disassociates itself from its cartoonist once the
storm has started and then proposes to review its editorial approach to the
publication of the cartoons and revise it if necessary. Cartooning for Peace deplores
what amounts to a reduction in freedom of expression, all the more so as this type of
control is likely to become a model.
Cartooning for Peace, which has been fighting against anti-Semitism, Islamophobia
and all forms of racism since its creation, deplores an attack on freedom of
expression and the abusive dismissal of the cartoonist after a long career with the
Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

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