The two previous instalments are available here.
Humour in trouble (II). Cases from 2017 to 2019
Humour in trouble (III). Cases from 2020 to 2022
Humour in trouble (IV). Cases from 2023 onwards
Total cases: 201
This is the first part of the list I started in 2014.
I wanted to compile cases that I remember, reviewed, or should have reviewed at the time, of cartoonists who have had problems of some importance because of their cartoons or satirical illustrations. There are also some cases of other people who, without being cartoonists, have had problems for sharing them.
I do not intend to collect them all, but will try to update the list as I recall or discover them. The "Muhammad cartoons" case is not added separately because it was spread over several years and triggered other events that are already well documented -(2). It is also referred to in many other directly or indirectly related cases. Nor have I dared to go back to the dates of censorship during the dictatorship in Spain because it would merit its own separate chapter and a much more thorough documentation work.
They have been ordered by year so that there is no hierarchy of importance or seriousness. In some cases, either because of age, country of occurrence or lack of reliable data, there are problems in discovering how they were resolved or in locating more direct sources, so any rectifications or contributions that help to refine the stories are welcome.
*Some notes are still awaiting answers to questions sent to related persons.
This entry is constantly being updated.
2016 Turkey / Musa Kart - Cumhuriyet
The Erdogan government arrested 13 journalists in a raid on the daily Cumhuriyet, including the editor, several editors and also the cartoonist Musa Kart, who ended up in prison. Five days later, during which they could not be defended by their lawyers, 10 people were remanded in custody.
2016 Italy / Charlie Hebdo
Mario Cichetti, lawyer for the municipality of Amatrice, one of the hardest hit by the earthquake of 24 August 2016, has filed a complaint with the Rieti public prosecutor's office for defamation against the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
2016 USA / Ben Garrison
Ben Garrison is said to be one of the most trolledAmerican political cartoonists on the internet, many of his cartoons have also been manipulated. In 2016 he confessed that he had lost the battle against his trolls.
2016 Australia / Ali, "Eaten Fish".
"Eaten Fish" is the pseudonym of a 24-year-old Iranian cartoonist named Ali Durani who spent three years locked up in the camp on Manus Island. He was finally able to get out thanks to the intervention of various organisations and individuals. In 2017 he left Papua New Guinea for a safe city in Europe thanks to the ICORN programme.
2016 Spain / José Manuel Álvarez "Napi" José Manuel Álvarez "Napi".
A cartoon by Napi published in issue 3,085 of the newspaper Mès Tarragona on Friday 15 July 2016 provoked the alluded to, Ernest Benach (ERC), former president of Parliament, to request a rectification from the newspaper.
2016 Jordan / Nahed Hattar
Writer Nahed Hattar was shot three times on Sunday 25 September 2016 in front of the court in Amman where he was on trial for the dissemination of a cartoon that the judiciary considered offensive to Islam. According to the official Petra news agency, the man who shot the writer was quickly arrested.
2016 Turkey / Dogan Güzet- Özgür Gündem
On 16 August 2016, the Turkish government closed the pro-Kurdish daily Özgür Gündem and arrested its 24 employees, including the cartoonist Dogan Güzel, who had fled Turkey in 2002, lived in Seville and was a Spanish national. After his release, Güzel said that the police maintained charges of resisting, insulting and assaulting the authorities.
2016 Australia / Bill Leak
On Thursday 4 August, a cartoon by Bill Leak was published in the Australian newspaper The Australian. Leak's cartoon was considered by many to be racist and prompted protests from Australian child and Aboriginal advocacy organisations, including the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, and social media campaigns against it.
2016 USA / Raúl Martínez, "Ramses II".
Raúl Martínez, "Ramsés II", received an email from The San Diego Union-Tribune, the newspaper he worked for. They informed him of their decision not to publish his latest cartoon on Trump's idea of building a wall that Mexicans would have to pay for, and informed him that they were no longer using his services. (Includes interview with the author).
2016 Turkey - Italy / Gianluca Costantini
Italian cartoonist Gianluca Costantini discovered that his blog was censored in July 2016 in Turkey. The .tr extension of his blog on Blogger (Google) for Turkey is no longer accessible in Turkey. The .com.tr extension is the default redirect if visiting from Turkey.
2016 Spain / El Jueves
A page of humour in a section of El Jueves entitled "Guía para sobrevivir...En Fuerteventura! provoked complaints from the Cabildo of Fuerteventura, and the Cabildo is demanding that the magazine "rectify its statements".
2016 Egypt / Al-Masry Al-Youm
Al-Masry Al-Youm, Egypt's largest private daily newspaper, received a large number of complaints and criticism for publishing a cartoon that many saw as a normalisation or apology for the sexual assault of women. The newspaper withdrew it and apologised.
2016 Spain / El Jueves
The director of the weekly satirical magazine El Jueves, Mayte Quílez, was assaulted early on 11 May at the entrance to her home in Barcelona on her way home from a jog. According to her account, an unidentified man, with his head covered by the hood of his sweatshirt, punched her in the face and fled.
2016 Turkey / LeMan Magazine
The Turkish satirical magazine "Leman" had prepared a special on the 15 July coup that was to be published on Wednesday morning, 20 July 2016, but the police prevented its distribution so that it would not go out of print. At 3 a.m., some people also tried to storm the magazine's offices, but no one was there. The police had to intervene to prevent them from invading the building.
2016 Ecuador / Vilma Vargas
The painter and cartoonist Vilma Vargas "Vilmatraca" had her exhibition at the Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana "Benjamín Carrión" building censored. The organisation justified the "cutting" of her exhibition of vignettes as "opposition to the regime" and "pamphletary" political content.
2016 Argentina / Barcelona Magazine
The Argentinean courts ordered the satirical magazine "Barcelona" to pay Cecilia Pando 40000 pesos in compensation for the publication of a satirical photomontage in which Pando was shown tied up with ropes, using her face to which the body of another woman was added.
2016 USA / Rick Friday
The weekly Farm News, aimed at Iowa farmers, bowed to pressure from an advertiser (Monsanto) and fired Rick Friday after 21 years as a cartoonist for the publication. Two months later, the publication apologised to the cartoonist and offered him a new contract. Rick accepted and returned to the weekly.
2016 Lebanon / Amjad Rasmi
A cartoon by London-based Jordanian cartoonist Amjad Rasmi, published on Friday 1 April, was the motive for the raid on the offices of the Arabic daily Asharq Al-Awsat in Beirut. The event forced the removal of the image from its website.
2016 Bulgaria / Tchavdar Nikolov
Bulgarian cartoonist Tchavdar Nikolov published animated cartoons on the VBOX7 platform of NOVA TV, one of the country's largest private television channels. The channel removed the animation, an interview with Nikolov and the rest of the works on the website, some 90 animations. It also cancelled the author's contract. Following protests against this decision, the company republished all the cartoonist's work and offered him a new contract.
2016 Egypt / Islam Gawish
On the afternoon of Sunday 31 January, Egyptian cartoonist Islam Gawish was arrested and released shortly afterwards. There are two versions of the reasons for his arrest. According to his lawyer, his arrest was motivated by some of his cartoons critical of the government. The authorities' version is that he was running a news website without a licence.
2016 Turkey / Carlos Latuff
This case is noteworthy because it is an attempt to censor a foreign author in Turkey. Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff said in an interview that Turkey is the only country where access to his blog has been officially blocked, and claimed to have documents from the Turkish government certifying the ban.
2016 Saudi Arabia/ Abdullah Jaber
On 28 December 2015, the Saudi cartoonist Abdullah Jaber published a cartoon parodying the lack of critical sense of citizens who never question the messages of their rulers. He then disappeared and reappeared days later claiming that the authorities had banned his cartoons from all newspapers in the kingdom indefinitely.
2016 Ecuador / El Universos newspaper
On 6 January 2016, Geovanni Augusto Jaramillo Barros filed a complaint with Intercom against the newspaper El Universo for a cartoon by Xaviel Bonil. The complainant considers that the image published in El Universo on 28 December 2105 "advocates or promotes discrimination, sexism, transphobia, etc".
2016 USA / Glenn Ferguson & Fredrick Torres
In January 2016, cartoonist Frederick Torres stabbed fellow cartoonist Glenn Ferguson in the head and neck with scissors, leaving him in an induced coma in hospital after a lengthy surgery session. In 2017, Torres was sentenced to life in prison for attempted first-degree murder.
2016 USA / Jayme Gordon
In 2011, cartoonist Jayme Gordon sued DreamWorks claiming that the film Kung Fu Panda (2008) plagiarised his characters created between 1990 and 2000. On 3 May 2017, Jayme Gordon was sentenced to two years in prison, three years of probation and ordered to pay more than $3 million in restitution to DreamWorks for fraud, fraud and perjury.
2015 USA / Ann Telnaes
The Washington Post decided to withdraw a cartoon/animation gif by Ann Telnaes, published on Tuesday 22 December, in which the daughters of Republican candidate Ted Cruz were caricatured as little monkeys. The cartoon satirised the use of his family for political purposes, alluding to a video campaigning for the candidate's primaries in a humorous way.
2015 Iran / Hadi Heidari
The cartoonist Hadi Heidari was arrested on 16 November 2015 at the newspaper Shahrvand by Iranian government agents. Some sources link his arrest to the publication of a cartoon in which he expressed solidarity with France over the Paris attacks of 13 November 2015.
2015 Algeria / Tahar Djehiche
Algerian cartoonist Tahar Djehiche was charged with insulting Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and "inciting the crowd". He was tried and acquitted in May 2015, but in November 2015 he was convicted on appeal by a court in Lemghir and sentenced to six months' imprisonment and a fine of 50,000 dinars.
2015 Denmark / Lars Vilks
On 14 February 2015, a shooting took place in Copenhagen during an appearance at a cultural centre by the French ambassador to Denmark, François Zimeray. He was speaking about Islamism and freedom of expression and paying tribute to Charlie Hebdo magazine. The Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, author of the 2007 cartoons of Mohammed, was at the event and survived the attack.
2015 France / Charlie Hebdo
7 January 2015, two terrorists break into the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and kill 12 people, including five cartoonists, and injure 11 others to varying degrees. All indications are that the motives for the massacre were once again the publication of cartoons of Mohammed and the cartoons on Islam that the weekly regularly depicts.
2014 United Kingdom/ The Economist
On Thursday 16 January 2014, the British newspaper The Economist published a cartoon by Peter Shrank accompanying an article on Iran's nuclear programme. Various organisations accused the newspaper of anti-Semitism. The newspaper eventually withdrew the cartoon and apologised.
2014 Ecuador / Bonil & El Universo
Once again, Supercom has taken action against cartoonist Bonil and the newspaper El Universo. This time for a cartoon/photomontage published on 5 August 2014 in the newspaper El Universo. According to the plaintiffs, the image launches "discriminatory messages that denote apology of discrimination or incitement to discriminatory acts".
2015 Palestine / Mohammad Saba'anehh
The cartoon by cartoonist Mohammad Saba'anehh was published on Sunday 1 February in the official West Bank-based daily al-Hayat al-Jadida. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced that the image will be investigated after some people found it offensive.
2014/2008 Belgium /MO Magazine
The story goes back to March 2006, when MO Magazine published a dossier on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The cover of the dossier, entitled "Georges Forrest: Congo's Copper King", featured a caricature of the Belgian industrialist wearing the leopard cap of former Zairean president Mobutu Sese-Seko. George Forrest sued the journalist and the magazine for defamation.
2014 Ireland/ Martyn Turner
The Irish Times apologised and removed from its website a cartoon by Martyn Turner on child abuse in the church published on 16 April in response to pressure from priests.
2014 Malaysia /Zunar
Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque is the name of the Malaysian cartoonist who signs his name as "Zunar". He was questioned by police at Dang Wangi police station in Kuala Lumpur on 20 November. This author has been a political cartoonist for more than two decades, much of which time he has suffered persecution and censorship by the government, as can be seen in his record.
2014 Turkey / LeMan Magazine
Yücel Barakazi, mayor of Bingöl (Turkey) threatened to sue the humorous magazine LeMan for one of its covers drawn by Güneri Içoglu and Aslan Özdemir.
2014 Turkey / Musa Kart
Turkish prosecutors have charged cartoonist Musa Kart with insulting and insulting the Turkish president for a cartoon published on 1 February 2014 in the daily Cumhuriyet. They are asking for nine years and ten months in prison for the cartoonist, and the case will be brought to court on 23 October 2014.
2014 Turkey/ Mehmet Düzenli
Turkish cartoonist, Mehmet Düzenli, was sent to prison on Thursday 12 June in the city of Alanya to serve a three-month sentence after being accused of insulting Adnan Oktar, a controversial Muslim preacher popular for his "televangelist" activity and for his creationist, anti-Zionist and Holocaust denial ideas.
