According to the organisation Hengaw, the writer and cartoonist Rahim Baghal Asghari was arrested in recent days by Iranian security forces in the city of Tabriz.
Hengaw speculates that Asghari was reportedly arrested by the Islamic Republic of Iran's security forces and taken to an unknown location and, citing messages from social media users, believes that his arrest is related to his satirical criticism of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) military actions against Israel.
I have searched as far as I could for any of the vignettes or critical opinions referred to as the possible cause of his arrest, but I have not been able to find them.
The note, published on 24 June, states that there is no official information available about his whereabouts or the charges against him. Nor have I been able to find any references to this case in the media, nor any further details about the exact day and place of his arrest. At the moment, all references do not add anything different to the note that is circulating.
Hengaw, according to its own description, is an independent human rights organisation based in Norway, established in 2016, which reports and monitors "relevant information on systematic human rights violations in Kurdistan and Iran".
While Asghari is said to be Turkish in Hengaw and other sources, most references state that he is Iranian and that he was born in 1974 in Tabriz, Iran.
Irancartoon cartoon gallery
Humour in trouble, a collection of cases
Cases of cartoonists who have had problems of some importance because of their cartoons or satirical illustrations. There are also some stories of other people who, without being cartoonists, have got into trouble for sharing them.
