Cavna: Crowdfund of the week: Free-speech cartoonists vs. legal and mortal threats

TOMORROW, the Malaysian cartoonist Zunar is expected to be charged with sedition over an illustrated tweet critical of his nations judiciary. If found guilty, he could face several years behind bars.

Last week, Turkish cartoonists Bahadir Baruter and Ozer Aydogan of the publication Penguen were sentenced to 14 months in prison for satirically insulting the nations president, before their sentences were commuted to fines.

And last month, while visiting Washington for a free-speech talk at Freedom House, Ecuadorian cartoonist Bonil told me that he cant spend his creative energy thinking about death threats, as well as a preliminary criminal investigation over his artwork, when he returns to his country. He faces accusations of socioeconomic discrimination, and he is fighting to stay free in body as well as in speech.

Elsewhere around the world, some political cartoonists also face arrests and threats at best, and disappearance and death in the darkest scenarios, over their commitment to exercise the power of the pen.

As Zunar says in a statement this week about the true power of the politically charged cartoon: The truth is seditious.

Coming to the aid of these artists the globe over, though, is the Cartoonists Rights Network International, which for one more week is running an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds for its numerous fights for cartoonist rights and protection.

The Virginia-based organization is buoyed by many of the industrys American brethren, including such Pulitzer-winning cartoonists as Joel Pett of the Lexington Herald-Leader and Matt Wuerker of Politico. And at the center of the human-rights group is executive director Robert Russell, a former Peace Corps worker who founded CRNI a quarter-century ago.

Comic Riffs caught up with Russell to talk about the mission and movements of CRNI, as well as how to best aid, protect and rescue cartoonists who risk life and liberty in the name of free speech, and in the visual pursuit of truth.

MICHAEL CAVNA: CRNI has been on the front lines of helping support cartoonists under editorial and personal attack for a quarter-century now. How much are threats against, and persecution of, cartoonists always a constant and roughly how many cartoonists around the globe would you say need your help at any given time?

ROBERT RUSSELL: At any given time, anywhere from three to five cartoonists are very high on our radar. For some of these cartoonists, the problems are just temporary and usually settled positively and without too much fanfare in the civil courts. Other of our cartoonist clients have been in and out of trouble with their antagonists for years. We also find that a consistent group of usual suspects keeps making the rounds on our radar screen. Recidivism amongst some particularly hard-hitting cartoonists can be very high.

Continued here:
Cavna: Crowdfund of the week: Free-speech cartoonists vs. legal and mortal threats