Amnesty International reports that the activist and artist Atena Farghadani has been given a “virginity test” after being observed shaking hands with her male attorney. Read my piece at the Washington Post about this latest outrageous action by the Iranian government.
Category: human rights
Presenting at Idea City 2015
Just returned from Toronto where I did a presentation about free speech and women in cartooning. Click on the image below for link to the video:
Garry Trudeau’s dangerous logic about Charlie Hebdo
(click on image for full column)
Looking back at the GW Bush presidency
I just returned from participating on a cartoonists panel looking back at the George W Bush presidency at Hofstra University in Long Island, NY. Our moderator was Roslyn Mazer, a great supporter of cartoonists’ free speech rights who represented the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists in an amicus brief for the famous Hustler v Falwell case in 1987. The other cartoonists on the panel were Mike Peters from the Dayton Daily News, Steve Breen from the San Diego Times Union-Tribune, and Mike Luckovich from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It’s always fun to get together with my colleagues and this particular group had me laughing most of the time. Especially Mike Peters. The evening before our panel Roslyn herded us to a local Italian restaurant (think The Sopranos) and watching Mike interact with our waiter was priceless.
The next day while we waited in the hospitality room before our panel I mentioned to Mike that the former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden was sitting over at the next table. Without missing a beat Mike rushed over to his table, introduced himself, and proceeded to ask the creator of the NSA warrantless surveillance program to “just forget” hearing that obscene phone call he had with his wife.
A sketch from another panel at the Hofstra presidential conference, “The Constitution, Executive Power and National Security Post-9/11. If you put everything Michael Hayden said during the discussion into one sentence it would be: The Obama administration is doing the same bad stuff we did. 
Another Bush presidency?
Former governor Jeb Bush gave a foreign policy speech yesterday in Chicago where he tried to distance himself from his brother George’s administration. In case you’ve forgotten what a disaster the last Bush presidency was, take a look at this.
The King of Saudi Arabia dies
King Abdullah has died at age 90.
A cartoon from the archives
Finally. SCOTUS agrees to take on marriage equality
Thirty-six states and the District of Columbia have legalized same-sex marriages. The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear cases from Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee over whether same-sex marriages should be legal throughout the nation or if individual states have the right to determine that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. It’s time for the question to be resolved. It’s time for equality for all Americans.
Statements in support of Charlie Hebdo
The two major U.S. cartooning groups and a cartoonists rights organization issued statements immediately after the massacre at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo (click on each for full statement).
The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC):
The National Cartoonists Society (NCS):
Cartoonists Rights Network International:
The Charlie Hebdo massacre
Four cartoonists Five cartoonists were among the 12 murdered at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on January 7th. My colleagues have banded together and continue to offer their support in the way they know best- through cartoons.
I’ll add more links later but meanwhile here’s the cartoon I drew in support of Charlie Hebdo right after hearing the horrible news:
My opinion piece “The killing of cartoonists” at the Washington Post
Cartoonists and Turkish President Erdogan
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan doesn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor. The New York Times has a story about how the Turkish president is trying to limit how he is depicted in drawings by arresting cartoonists and charging them with libel and insulting government officials (which is apparently against the law in Turkey). The Cartoonists Rights Network International also writes about it here.
My Washington Post cartoon about President Erdogan arresting a 16-year-old because the teenager criticized him received quite a bit of traffic on twitter among Turkish readers. It also ended up on the front page of Cumhuriyet, the oldest Turkish daily newspaper.
Happy New Year- 2015
My Washington Post editor, Karen Attiah, put together a great year-end review of several animations, sketches and gifs. Check it out here.
Former VP Dick Cheney was interviewed on Fox News last night and said President Bush was “fully informed” about the CIA interrogation methods, contradicting the Senate report’s finding that Bush was first briefed in 2006.
click image for animated gif