Committee to Protect Journalists

Tanzania: cartoonist held by police without charge

According to the local cartoonists’ organisation and leading Tanzanian human rights experts, Optatus Fwema’s rights have been violated after more than ten days of detention.

UPDATE – OCTOBER 08 2021: Following strongly-worded condemnation from both Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders, CRNI understands that Optatus Fwema was released earlier today, ending two weeks of detention. This is welcome but it’s apparent that a “Cyber Crimes” case will be brought against him at a later date. We urge the Tanzanian authorities to drop any and all charges and agree with RSF’s assessment: “Only the worst authoritarian regimes jail cartoonists over an ordinary satirical cartoon of the country’s leader.”

In a statement dated October 4th, the East African Cartoonists’ Society – KATUNI say that their member Optatus Fwema was arrested at his home on September 23rd. They state that the national law is very clear with regard to the limited time in which detention without charge is permissible and that having failed to bring a case against him the police have violated his rights. The continue: “He has also been denied bail and is therefore being held illegally.”

They are joined by Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition (THRDC) who also made a release to the press today, saying in part:

“On 30th September 2021 Mr. Fwema was interrogated in absence of his advocate or family members for cyber offences. To date, no formal charge has been instituted in any court against him. Such unlawful prolonged detention is contrary to Section 32 of the Criminal Procedure Act Cap 20 R.E 2019 which obliges the Police Force not to detain a suspect in custody for more than 24 hours without releasing him on bail or arraigning him to a court of competent jurisdiction. Unlawful detention is a denial of one’s constitutional right to liberty guaranteed under Article 15 of the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania, 1977 [Cap 2 R.E 2002].“

Source: Instagram

CRNI understands that colleagues of Mr Fwema believe the cartoon prompting police action depicts current President of the Republic, Samia Suluhu as a child carelessly splashing a tub of water. A former President, Jakaya Kikwete is shown shielding her from criticism. The 4th and 6th office-holders respectively, Kikwete is perceived to have been a mentor to Suluhu. Her immediate predecessor, John Magufuli, passed away earlier this year.

Mr Fwema is due to appear in court tomorrow, October 5th, with THRDC lawyers attending.

We share the alarm expressed by our colleagues at Cartooning For Peace, expect a swift hearing tomorrow were any charges against Optatus Fwema are brought in a timely fashion so that bail may be granted and he can return home. To detain him longer is unacceptable.

 To Report a Cartoonist in Danger  Email Cartoonists Rights Network International

BANGLADESH: release Ahmed Kabir Kishore before he dies in custody

What now for detained cartoonist Ahmed Kabir Kishore as allegations of mistreatment and torture surface and his co-accused, the writer Mushtaq Ahmed is reported DOA at a hospital outside Dhaka?

UPDATE – FEBRUARY 28 2021: according to local press and confirmed by Kishore’s lawyer, a Dhaka magistrate has rejected a “remand prayer” (in essence, an effort by the police to interrogate the cartoonist once again) and his seventh bail request will be heard in the High Court tomorrow, March 1st. Meanwhile an official application has been made to open an investigation into Kishore’s physical mistreatment and allegations of torture. Protests over the death of Mushtaq Ahmed have continued over the last forty-eight hours, prompting severe counter-measures from police, and the heads of thirteen diplomatic missions have written to Bangladesh’s government voicing their grave concern.

Readers of this website over the past year will know that Ahmed Kabir Kishore, the winner of our Robert Russell Courage in Cartooning Award, has been languishing in jail since May 2020 when his cartoons about the Bangladeshi government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic led to his arrest under the Digital Security Act, a law widely and very recently criticised by Article 19, Committee to Protect Journalists, and Human Rights Watch Asia experts as an unjust, vague and overly broad law that grants Bangladesh’s government latitude to “essentially arrest anyone they want based on any online activity”.

Kishore was among eleven co-accused arrested last year. The ten months since have entailed a convoluted saga that at times has strained the limits of credibility in its detail. But of all those involved in the amorphous and poorly-articulated case the state proposes against the group, the two most egregiously mistreated have been Kishore and writer Mushtaq Ahmed. Both were seized by the notorious Rapid Action Battalion shock-troopers, both put in a maximum security facility, both denied bail six times while others were set free amid the oncoming pandemic and neither were ever out of the frame as eight others named in the case were, albeit briefly.

According to local press both men were visibly underweight earlier this month. On February 23rd Kishore made a brief appearance at a magistrate court hearing and while there passed a note to a lawyer, who then passed them to his family. We have heard directly from Kishore’s brother Ahsan Kabir and his defence barrister Jyotirmoy Barua. For some time the Kabir family had warned that they feared he was being tortured during his time in custody but this past week offered their first opportunity to get any detail. They have reported a shocking and extensive deterioration in his physical health.

He is an insulin dependent diabetic and we had long expected he would not fare well in custody while unable to confidently and freely take adequate injections. But the reported issues with his eyesight and infected wounds in his ears and on his left leg as well as loss of weight cannot be easily explained merely by insulin rationing. Indeed Kishore has put in writing the allegation that he is a victim of physical abuse and offered descriptions from memory of the two police officers he alleges are responsible.

While weighing the ramifications of these developments news broke that Mushtaq Ahmed perished on the evening of February 25th. The official line is that he simply collapsed in his cell at the Kashimpur jail and was dead on arrival at the hospital in Gazipur. CPJ has the fullest account at this early stage but it is safe to say that explanations of Ahmed’s cause of death will not be taken at face value by most observers unless coming from an impartial source.

From the outset we have expressed deep concerns about Ahmed Kabir Kishore’s welfare, sentiments that were echoed by a host of organisations and experts through the course of last year. But we are now quite convinced that the cartoonist is in imminent danger of death. His immediate release is absolutely essential.

As CPJ, HRW and other leading freedom of expression organisations take note of what has occurred we expect a critical mass of support to coalesce behind Ahmed Kabir Kishore. The only question is whether Bangladesh’s government, police and judiciary will at last do the decent and humane thing and drop the entire case against him or through their inaction make tacit admission that they are content to risk the death of a cartoonist, a citizen who simply had the temerity to post some drawings on Facebook.

 To Report a Cartoonist in Danger  Email Cartoonists Rights Network International

Badiucao wins CRNI’s Courage in Cartooning Award 2019

CRNI announces its annual prize, now dubbed the Robert Russell Courage in Cartooning Award.

Badiucao unmasked
Badiucao, China’s Artful Dissident

In recognition of his bold defiance and courageous decision to remove the literal mask of anonymity under which he has worked for a decade, Cartoonists Rights Network International bestows its award for 2019 to the Chinese dissident, campaigner and visual artist Badiucao.

Earlier this year we wrote about China’s Artful Dissident, the documentary film made by Danny Ben-Moshe and broadcast on ABC in Australia, which covers the period prior to Badiucao’s first major exhibition of work in Hong Kong. The show was set to proceed in November last year but was cancelled at the last moment when it became apparent that Badiucao’s family in China were being harassed by police. This meant that the CCP had successfully discerned Badiucao’s true identity and led to many months in which the artist withdrew completely from public life.

In April 2019 China’s Artful Dissident aired with a coda in which Badiucao removed his mask. This heralded his return to artistic practice and was soon followed with a number of public artworks as well as online cartoons to mark the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Since then, the whole world’s attention has been galvanised by the massive public protests in Hong Kong over extradition to China, and the horrifying brutality with which police – and, apparently, organised criminals – have cracked down on demonstrators. Badiucao has been energised by the campaign and created cartoon after cartoon, variously inspired by the “Lennon Wall”, the accoutrements that protestors have carried with them to protect themselves from tear gas and other crowd control measures, and most of all the persona of the city’s chief executive Carrie Lam. Lam recently announced the controversial bill on extradition that sparked the unrest will be fully abandoned from consideration.

Like an increasing number of cartoonists from whom we receive testimony, Badiucao has had cause to complain about his work being removed from social media for supposed violations of rules pertaining to content while at the same time receiving threats of violence via those same platforms. The number of abusive messages aimed at Badiucao have spiked this year, perhaps unsurprisingly given his higher profile.

Badiucao has also been actively engaged in the debate that has arisen in his adopted nation of Australia, where visiting Chinese students in particular have clashed with those expressing their solidarity with the protesters in Hong Kong. He has publicly asked Twitter to add a “Tank Man” emoji to their platform in time for next year’s Tiananmen anniversary and most recently unveiled a flag design inspired by the post-it note covered “Lennon Wall”, intended to express a clean break with the past and the hope of a democratic Hong Kong.

Please note that this beautiful flag design, like a great many of Badiucao’s past cartoons and graphics, is available for download free of charge for use by activists and campaigners everywhere.

“Badiucao is an exemplary cartoonist of courage. He was specifically targeted by a censorious regime — in person, online and, most disturbingly of all, via pressure applied to family members — but has persevered and removed the leverage his adversaries thought they could exploit by actively dismantling the anonymity they assumed he cherished most.
Thankfully Badiucao is an Australian resident and so cannot be abused as readily as some other cartoonists seized by China in recent years, most notably Jiang Yefei and Zhang Dongning, both of whom have been arrested, criminalised and essentially disappeared. However he is not immune and believes he has been followed, hacked and even had his home invaded by agents of the state. As China celebrates the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic it’s worth contemplating how far they have come in terms of economic development and international relations, weighed against the minimal progress made on fundamental and individual freedoms.
Reporters Sans Frontieres places China 177th of 180 nations on its Press Freedom Index. Committee to Protect Journalists places it 5th in its Top 10 Most Censored Countries. It is ironic that so many modern Chinese citizens enjoy the trappings of middle-class life — abundant consumer goods, lavish weddings, pampered pets and much foreign travel — while they are denied the simple act of expressing dissatisfaction with their government. China is mighty. It has nothing to lose and everything to gain by loosening its grip on discourse.”

Terry Anderson, Acting Executive Director, CRNI

Cartoons by Badiucao as well as the previous Courage in Cartooning Award winner PX Molina are on display at the Sorbonne Art Gallery, Sorbonne University, Paris as part of the Cartooning Global Forum this week and tomorrow evening he is the guest of our friends Index on Censorship at a special screening of China’s Artful Dissident in London along with the documentarian Danny Ben-Moshe and introduced by cartoonist Martin Rowson.

Badiucao will receive our Courage in Cartooning Award later in the year; more details to be announced nearer the time.

 To Report a Cartoonist in Danger  Email Cartoonists Rights Network International

Zunar: My Mission Is To Fight Through Cartoon

Zunar presented CPJ International Press Freedom Award

Zunar presented CPJ International Press Freedom Award

Malaysian political cartoonist Zunar, who is currently facing a possible 43-year jail sentence on charges brought under Malaysia’s Sedition Act, was presented the International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists at a gala event in New York City on November 24.

Zunar’s acceptance speech:

Thank you very much for this award.

I’m so happy to be here tonight to accept this and not in a jail somewhere in Malaysia.

I would like to dedicate this award to the Malaysians who have equally pushed for reform.

It is both my responsibility and my right as a citizen to expose corruption, wrongdoing and injustices.  Laws like the Sedition Act mean that drawing cartoons is a crime since the Sedition Act is a criminal act.

The government of Malaysia is a cartoon government; a government of the cartoon, by the cartoon, for the cartoon — sorry Abraham Lincoln.

For asking people to laugh at the government, I was handcuffed, detained, thrown into the lock up.  But I kept laughing and encouraging people to laugh with me.  Why?  Because laughter is the best form of protest.

My mission is to fight through cartoon.

Why pinch when you can punch?  People need to know the truth and I will continue to fight through my cartoons. 

I want to give a clear message to the aggressors — they can ban my cartoons, they can ban my books, but they cannot ban my mind. 

Also receiving CPJ International Press Freedom Awards were Cándido Figueredo Ruíz of Paraguay, Syrian citizen journalist collective Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, and Zone 9 bloggers of Ethiopia https://www.cpj.org/awards/2015/zone-9-bloggers-ethiopia.php.

Zunar’s next court appearance regarding his sedition charges is scheduled for December 8. [Page]

 

To report a cartoonist in danger — Email Cartoonists Rights Network

CRNI
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram

Our awards-giving partners, Freedom Cartoonists Foundation, Geneva

Categories

GDPR

Visitors to this site based in the EU – please be aware this site uses Cookies. Full details in our Privacy Policy.

CARTOONISTS RIGHTS
DEFENDING CARTOONISTS ON THE FRONTLINES OF FREE SPEECH