Tag: iran

She Changed Comics: Marjane Satrapi

In the early 2000s, Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis set a new standard for graphic memoirs. Taking an inside look at the brutality and absurdity that overtook her native Iran in the early 1980s, Satrapi’s book met with resounding success amount casual…

Send Messages of Hope to Imprisoned Writers

PEN America is collecting messages of encouragement and hope to be delivered to writers currently imprisoned around the world for standing up for their own beliefs. People are encouraged to go to PEN American’s website and write letters of solidarity…

Submissions Open for International Human Rights Cartoon Award

Exiled Iranian cartoonist Kianoush Ramezani, who was forced to flee his native country when the regime took notice of his work in 2009, has established a new international prize to recognize cartoonists who are speaking out on issues of human…

Exiled Satirist Uses Cartoons to Tackle Sex Education in Iran

The strict religious views of Iranian authorities have had a dramatic effect on several social issues in country, one of the most problematic being that of sexual education — or lack thereof. Keyomars Marzan, the Iranian satirist better known as Kya,…

Farghadani Gives Firsthand Account of Imprisonment for Cartoon

Just over a year ago, Iranian artist and activist Atena Farghadani was released from prison after 18 months. Her so-called crime: drawing Iranian MPs as apes and bovines while they debated a bill toban voluntary sterilization procedures such as vasectomies…

Farghadani Discusses Past Imprisonment and Future Plans

Just over two months ago, Iranian artist and activist Atena Farghadani was freed from prison after her draconian prison sentence of 12 years and 9 months for mocking her country’s parliament in a cartoon was shortened to the 18 months…

CBLDF’s Charles Brownstein Examines Representation and Free Expression in Comics

Earlier this year, CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein toured the exhibit Our Comics, Ourselves: Identity, Expression, and Representation in Comic Art at Brooklyn’s Interference Archive. The physical exhibit packed up in April, but it lives on as a Tumblr blog…

Independence Day Around the World

As we celebrate Independence Day, we also celebrate the independent spirit of our country’s founders, men and women who fought against an oppressive regime and eventually gave us the law that CBLDF works to protect: the First Amendment. Freedom of expression…

Farghadani Strikes Back with New Cartoon

In light of the fact that she recently spent 18 months in prison for drawing a caricature of the Iranian Parliament, Atena Farghadani could be forgiven for taking a bit of a professional break to savor her newfound freedom. Instead,…

Iranian Cartoonists’ Association Becomes Tool for “Suppression and Prevention”

Iran’s House of Cartoon is currently hosting a deliberately provocative Holocaust Cartoon Contest, which organizers say is intended in part to test the boundaries of free expression in the opposite extreme from the Muhammad caricatures in Charlie Hebdo and events…