Zunar Wins CPJ International Press Freedom Award

The Malaysian cartoonist Zunar has been named one of the winners of this year's Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) International Press Freedome Awards. It is the first time that a cartoonist has been honore. Zunar is a past recipient of the CRNI Courage In Cartooning Award for his fight against authorities in his home country to restrict, harass and bar the publication and dissemination of his comics works. Some of those works are criticial of sitting politicians.

They've run a solid profile of the artist here.

While publicly exonerated by court decision of the charges for which Zunar first came to international attention, Zunar has received a second virulent round of government checks on both his work and his advocacy more generally. He currently faces 43 years in prison for a selection of tweets charged under an outmoded sedition act, the latest hearing of which has been moved to November.

One painful irony of the Zunar sitution is that his arrests, indictments and harassment paint such an unflattering portrait of the government's fears and behavior that they give his cartoons that much more weight and make their own argument for the arrogant and abusive behavior he criticizes. I wish him every advantage in the weeks ahead.
 
posted 11:55 pm PST | Permalink
 

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