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August 15, 2005
A Look at the Cartoonists Rights Network
By R.C. Harvey
In many countries, particularly in the Third World, cartoonists are heroes,
much more powerful public figures than they are here or in Europe.
According to Robert “Bro” Russell, CRN founder, in many such countries foreign service officials are advised to look in newspapers for the daily cartoon: the cartoon shows them what the average citizen is “thinking” that day, Russell told me. Because the visual medium is so persuasive-especially in countries where illiteracy is high-cartoonists are often jumped on by their governments if they draw cartoons critical of high officials.
As recently as 1999, two editorial cartoonists were murdered for expressing their views; in 2000, three were jailed, and in 2001, many were under judicial prosecution or personal threat because their cartoons offended the wrong people.
The seeds for CRN were sown in 1989 when Russell, a foreign service specialist in development, was approached by a worried cartoonist in Sri Lanka. The cartoonist expected to be disciplined by his government, but he asked Russell for help in protecting his family.
“There are lots of journalist aid groups,” Russell said, “but none for cartoonists.” He resolved to remedy that situation. At first, beginning in about 1991, the strategy was simply to make the plight of persecuted cartoonists visible in the conviction that cartoonists in the public eye worldwide would not be treated badly.
Russell established a “watch list” that publicized the names and situations of cartoonists being threatened. (In November 1997, for example, the Watch List reviewed 30 cases. Although most of the Watch List cases involve arrests, trials, and jail sentences, two cartoonists in Algeria were killed, one by a car bomb, the other after being abducted by gunmen.)
Musa Kart is the fifth recipient of the Courage in Cartooning Award; of the other four — an Egyptian, a Camaroonian, an Iranian and a Kurdish Turk — some were in jail at the time of receiving the award.
Recipients of previous Courage in Editorial Cartooning awards, Russell reported, are, at present, safe. One has been spirited away to Canada, where he works in an inconspicuous job while efforts to extract his family go forward.
I’ve refrained, here, from mentioning names because many of those to whom the Watch List referred are still working and still in danger, their lives and those of their families threatened. Many, regardless, continue to work, drawing cartoons critical of their oppressive governments. CRN keeps them on the Watch List.
CRN responds immediately to reports of abuses by approaching embassies and political leaders and by mounting publicity campaigns to advocate for persecuted cartoonists.
CRN also produces “lobbying booklets” defending specific cartoonists by “using sharp editorial cartoons drawn about the victim’s specific situation,” and sponsors a traveling archive of the images and stories that got cartoonists in trouble.
Russell is the Executive Director (at cartoonistnet@aol.com and www.cartoon-crn.com ); CRN board of directors include Pulitzer-winning cartoonists Kevin Kallaugher, Joel Pett, Ann Telnaes, Signe Wilkinson, and Steve Benson, to name a few.