The state-owned Tunisian newspaper La Presse last week rejected a cartoon that criticized the U.S. government’s involvement in Tunisian domestic affairs. According to cartoonist Lotfi Ben Sassi, someone at the newspaper said the strip he submitted for last Sunday’s paper…
Category: International
Zunar Sedition Trial Delayed Yet Again to April 7
The sedition trial of Malaysian cartoonist Zunar has been delayed yet again to April 7, he reported via Twitter this week. After multiple delays while a separate challenge to the country’s Sedition Act is pending, the trial had been set…
Batman v. Superman Censored in India
Last month, it was Deadpool. This month, it’s Batman v Superman. Fans in India will be seeing an edited version of the film after the country’s censor board determined that one scene showing “a fleeting nude figure” was too much…
Turkish Government Seizes Opposition Newspaper Zaman
The Turkish government on Friday seized control of the opposition-aligned Feza Media Group, which includes the newspaper Zaman, its English-language sister publication Today’s Zaman, and the Cihan news agency. Employees locked themselves inside the Feza building on Friday as supporters…
International Release of The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye Breaks Singapore’s Silent History
This week marks the international release of comics creator Sonny Liew’s controversial-in-Singapore graphic novel The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye, and it’s already garnering praise and acclaim, furthering Liew’s goal to tell the story of Singapore’s silenced, secret — and what…
Protect Yourself When Traveling With Manga
If there’s one thing we know about North American Customs officials, it’s that they are not, by and large, aficionados of manga. Art that’s fairly commonplace in Japan can easily be labeled as child porn at U.S. and Canadian ports…
Discriminatory Complaint Against Ecuadorian Cartoonist Declared “Baseless”
Ecuadorian communications agency Cordicom has put to rest a complaint made to governmental censorship agency Supercom earlier this year, determining that a recent cartoon by Javier Bonilla (aka Bonil) is in fact not promoting a discriminatory message against the LGBTQ community. In…
$600,000 Added to Bounty on Author Salman Rushdie
27 years after its release, Salman Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses still incites outrage and controversy in Iran, with the recent addition of approximately $600,000 to the already $3.3 million bounty for the author’s death. To mark the 27 anniversary of the…
Ahmed Naji Sentenced to Two Years in Prison for “Violating Public Modesty”
Egyptian novelist Ahmed Naji was sentenced to two years in prison this weekend for “violating public modesty” with an excerpt from his book Use of Life, which was published in a state-owned newspaper two years ago. Naji was previously acquitted…
Kashmiri Cartoonist Back on Facebook After Temporary Block
Facebook again waded into complex international politics last week when it temporarily blocked a Kashmiri cartoonist’s work commenting on the Indian government’s 2013 execution of Mohammad Afzal Guru, who was convicted as an accessory to a 2001 terrorist attack on…