Cartoon exhibition at Porto Alegre City Hall censored

Poster of the graphic humour exhibition at the Porto Alegre City Hall that has been censored

One day after the inauguration of the graphic humour exhibition “Laughter is risk: independence in danger”, installed at the entrance of the plenary hall of the Porto Alegre City Hall (Brazil), it was closed and all the cartoons removed.

The exhibition, which brought together some 40 works by Brazilian authors, took a critical look at Brazil’s Independence, but for some, many of the cartoons could offend the President of the Republic, Jair Bolsonaro.

Participants

The cartoonists taking part were: Edgar Vasques, Santiago, Vecente, Dóro, Elias, Alexandre Beck, Alisson Affonso, Bier, Bruno Ortiz, Edu, Eugênio, Gui Moojen, Hals, Kayser, Koostela, Latuff, Nik, Schroder and Uberti.

One of Carlos Latuff‘s cartoons
According to cartoonist Celso Augusto Schröder, director of international relations of the National Federation of Journalists (Fenaj) and author of one of the works:

“To our surprise, they reported that councillor Monica Leal (PP), following a request by Valter Nagelstein (MDB), withdrew the exhibition, in a clear act of censorship. It is worrying “

Monica Leal, president of the Porto Alegre Local Chamber of Porto Alegre called the exhibition offensive and pointed the finger at Marcelo Sgarbossa (PT):

“The cartoonists can accuse the Chamber of censorship, it is offensive and has no place. This is not the exhibition that councillor Marcelo Sgarbossa requested.

Valter Nagelstein went furtherand spoke of a “crime”.

“The exhibition promoted by the PT is a crime against the president of Brazil, whether they like it or not, he has been elected by the sovereign will of the people. It is ferocious and a crime. At the headquarters of the PT it would be fine!”.

Cartoon by Edgar Vasques

The withdrawal of the exhibition provoked different reactions. The National Federation of Journalists (Fenaj) and the Union of Professional Journalists of Rio Grande do Sul (Sindjors) issued a note repudiating the ban, and on Facebook they called for a three-hour protest on Thursday 5 September “Against censorship and for freedom of expression” in front of the Chamber of Deputies.

Useless censorship

And although it is almost impossible to censor anything today, to do my bit to make it easier to find them, here are all the cartoons from the withdrawn exhibition. They are also in this video.

More info in Journal do Comércio‘s note.

Update: 13 September 2019