Filed under: Press & Cartoonists Rights

Rob Tornoe reports that Iranian cartoonist Hadi Heidari has been released from prison. Hadi was arrested October 22 while attending a religious ceremony honoring political prisoners.

I’m a day late on this one: To mark the fourth anniversary of the first printing of the Danish Mohammad cartoons, the International Free Press Society has named September 30th as International Free Press day. In an era in which the act of speaking out in the Western world has become increasingly subject to the […]

Ironic that two of the artists behind the infamous Mohammed cartoons would be speaking at Yale, whose publishing house that bears its name, refused to include the cartoons in a book about the cartoons. Kurt Westergaard and Lars Hedegaard will speak to Yale students on October 1, three days after the book, “The Cartoons That […]

A group of prominent conservative Yale alumni, led by former United Nations John Bolton, is circulating a letter to the editor urging other Yale graduates “to sign the letter and to call on the University to publish ‘The Cartoons that Shook the World’ with the cartoons that shook the world intact,” according to the Yale […]

Last week I told you that Yale University Press had decided NOT to include reprints of the infamous 12 Mohammed cartoons in a book about the cartoons. The University is taking heat from The American Association of University Professors who issued a statement stating, “We do not negotiate with terrorists. We just accede to their […]

According to Michael Cavna over on his Comics Riff blog, more than 100 Iranian cartoonist will boycott the upcoming Ninth Tehran International Cartoon Biennial scheduled for October. According to Nik Kowsar, an exiled Iranian political cartoonist now living near Toronto, many of his colleagues have decided to boycott the Ninth Tehran International Cartoon Biennial, scheduled […]

The Treasury Departments put out a RFI (Request for information) – the first step in hiring a cartoonist to “conduct two, three-hour presentations for its employees on the benefits of humor in the workplace and the connection between humor and stress relief.” But the plan came to a screeching halt after the job posting hit […]

The BBC has a great story about the impact of the now famous Danish Mohammed cartoons. Last week’s NATO summit hit a snag because Turkey threatened to veto the appointment of Denmark’s Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen because the PM has not apologized for the cartoons. As the BBC reports, the question of importance regarding […]

NRC Handelsblad reports that famed Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard is out of hiding (but still under police protection) and has done 26 illustrations for a new book collection of columns written by a fellow Danish columnist Lars Hedegaard. Kurt says that there was “no intention to depict the so-called prophet,” but that people could always […]

Mike Lynch found a great interview with Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who drew the infamous cartoon of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban. The three part, sub-titled interview is presented below.Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

New reports regarding Kurt Westergaard, who faces trail in Jordan for drawing the infamous Mohammed cartoon, state that he is not planning to go to Jordan to stand trial. While the Jordanian government has subpoenaed Kurt, he has not received it. Fearing for his safety if he traveled to the Middle East, he has said […]

Kurt Westergaard, the man who drew the no infamous Mohammed carton that incited Muslims from around the world says he’s prepared to stand trial in Jordon. In a story posted on ABC News Australia he says: “I would like to go to Amman to stand trial. However, what I fear is that I am convicted […]

The Washington Post has an excellent article on the challenges of free speech, religion and cartooning that is expanding out from the infamous Mohammed cartoons in Denmark citing the recent arrest of Gregorius Nekschot and a case in Britain that caused police to end an ad campaign that featured a German shepherd puppy because dogs […]

Danish prosecutors have dropped charges against one of the Muslim men that were arrested for planning the assassination of Kurt Westergaard, one of the infamous Mohammed cartoonists, due to lack of evidence. Reuters quotes the prosecutor as saying: “Even though there is information of a connection between the 40-year-old and the planners of the plot […]

A Jordanian court is holding an in-absentia trial on 10 Danish editors and one cartoonists who published the Mohammed cartoons under a 2006 Jordanian law called the Jordanian Justice Act that allows Jordanian officials “to prosecute crimes committed outside the country if it affected the people of Jordan by electronic means.” The public prosecutors will […]