Daryl Cagle: Hi, I'm Daryl Cagle and this is the Caglecast where we're all about political cartoons. And today we're talking about the cartoons that cause lots of trouble in the world and get cartoonists thrown in jail and start trials and lawsuits. there is a lot of that going on I hate to see it. And we'll show you some of that.
Zehra Ömeroğlu: Thank you. Thank you so much, darl. But I cannot say I'm acquitted. Yes, I was acquitted, but then the prosecutor insists on punishing me. He's so insisting and he is so strict on that. And he took the court to do court of appeal, so he rejected the acquittal, . I don't know how long it'll last. I have no idea. Maybe more years. So we will all see, I cannot say, okay. I'm relieved. I was, I'm, it started all over again, unfortunately.
actually. It's very strange. The very same day with my equi a cartoon. About Mohammad cartoon, but it's not a depiction of Mohammed. That cartoon was published in LeMan, the very same day that with my trial, you know, with my hearing, with my acquittal, let's say, yeah, it's the very same day. So I think this country doesn't let you even breathe for a few days and enjoy your acquittal. I don't know. Yeah.
Chief editor, and I don't know, it's in English, but many other other editors. But he was the previous editor, but he hasn't been coming even to LeMan or making any decisions about LeMan for many years. So he just quit years ago. But they arrested him also.
Until they get this result, put me into prison. Or maybe a fine, I don't know, with any punishment, they won't give up. I think there is no other explanation.
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Daryl Cagle: The LeMan editors all being arrested for a cartoon This is the cartoon in question, , and you can see that Mohammed there on the left has been blurred out. And z maybe you should read this Turkish cartoon to us and tell us what's going on.
In it's all, limited to Islamic people. And so what name are you gonna pick for somebody to say, this guy's Islam and that guy's Jewish. That, that makes perfect sense to me. That doesn't label him as Prophet Mohammad.
This was a cartoon that could be willfully misrepresented and easily used as the pretext for the kind of action that we saw happening in Istanbul at the end of July for the benefit of those who are perhaps listening and can't see this image. It is categorically not a cartoon. Of the Prophet Mohammed, we see a scene with munitions falling from the sky.
Dogan Pehlevan, the cartoonist concerned, had done a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad. It is categorically not that, and anybody that looks at the cartoon, and certainly who looks at the, shall we say, unexpurgated version, the original printed version of the cartoon would know that. Very hard to do. Now, because the magazine has disappeared, LeMan is off the shelves.
Maybe if there had been a third figure that would've just, made it absolutely crystal clear that this is an ecunemical statement about the indiscriminate death that's ensued. But again, it's at this stage beside the point because it's been presented as something that it was not, it's been taken.
That was the only one. Now it's gone. Yes, it was the last one. There are some magazines who is not, which is not regularly published, but this was the only one left. The oldest one published also most famous one. So sorry to see that. It's it doesn't exist right now. When I was in the street yesterday, I think they just put off the name LeMan from the building.
There are a huge one in the street in front of And there is, no magazines now in Turkey to draw not only political cartoons, you cannot draw anywhere. And there are some, they're not like newspapers, but some accounts like publish, try to publish political cartoons on social media, but they cannot stand the reaction, so they don't prefer to publish it.
What's wrong with this cartoon? They couldn't believe. And some of them the accountant for example, he said, but there's nothing to do with me. And this cartoon is so innocent. And then we, he was even smiling, we said, okay, this is not a big thing. No one guessed that this attack would happen. This, the scale is really big this time. And then we just hang up the phone and I saw him getting arrested violently in, on media. It was so sad.
While these men are being arrested, while these detentions are ongoing, suddenly we have an investigation of the entire magazine for financial irregularities and the accusation being that they have accepted money from abroad with the purposes of fomenting descent and acting as fifth columnists within Turkey.
Zehra Ömeroğlu: Yeah, this one is, I think it's a little confusing for the ones who are outside of Turkey because this robe it represents the law like the judge, the prosecutor, the lawyer, and the other one is the helmet of police. It means that Erdogan controls. But it's not like controlling.
Zehra Ömeroğlu: This was, ah so strange. I was shocked when I was watching it, and it was really anyway, it was hard to see like Zelensky with Trump. He was like a kid, and he got smaller and smaller, like Trump was yelling at Zelensky.
Daryl Cagle: And it's very funny, it's a COVID era cartoon, and you've got the guy thinking at least I didn't lose my taste and smell. And that's just very funny. And the idea that they would be so motivated to punish you for that is crazy.
Don't sweet them, doesn't sweet them. A bad idea, for example, for them about religion, about government, blah, blah. And they really want to punish you because of another cartoon you wrote. But then they start to follow you every week in magazine or on social media, and they try to find the most in their point of view, insulting cartoon to, to put it on trial.
So the women were like angry in yelling is the right word. I dunno. They were angry and it was a LeMan cover. And then a huge link on social media and also not only social media, also the mainstream media who supports the governments. Also, they threatened us, me and LeMan it was very clear, like they anyway, and it took some time and then just in some weeks they started this investigation also.
Zehra Ömeroğlu: Yeah, thank you. But I was really, I felt relieved after the acquittal. I was in Berlin because I went to Berlin before the trial, as a precaution. And I said, okay, I got rid of this. Now I have a new life. I can focus on my graphic novel, new life, blah, blah, because I had many.
Daryl Cagle: Terry is the
I think this cartoon at the same place at the same time with a male. Byline would not have elicited anything like the same response that this one has. Zehra is probably right. It's probably not really about this cartoon per se. This is the one that presents itself as the easiest one to prosecute, and it bears comparison to what's happened at LeMan lately.
If so, for how long? If it's a suspended sentence, what will the terms of that be? What will I be able to do and not able to do? If it's a fine, where is that money supposed to come from? And in the meantime, what about my career? If I'm considered a criminal are other people gonna take the risk of publishing my work?
And it'll mean that they won't run advertising on it so that they're not going to let people find it unless they know exactly where to go. And, we have those kinds of issues here in America too.
Zehra Ömeroğlu: I think we should be smiling to protect our mental health. And, there's one more thing that the judge asked for a report. About this cartoon, whether to decide whether, if it's obscene or not. There's a council about it this council was launched in, I think it's, it was in nineties for a pornographic magazines, you know these Yeah. To put into black black bags, these magazines. And now they are the ones who decide about this cartoon.
Terry Anderson: Yep. So the last time we spoke the creator of this image, Atena Farghadani, was in jail in Iran. This was one of her paintings that was part of an exhibit at the Oslo Freedom Forum. In April of last year, the cartoon in the center is the cartoon for which she originally went to jail in 2015. And
She was arrested on the spot, quite badly beaten taken to prison and had been in jail for the better part of a year when we last spoke and was looking at a stretch to come, but happily the charges against her were reduced to something less serious. The commensurate sentence was reduced to eight months, and that was considered time served.
Terry Anderson: I don't dunno if grave is the word. They're all grave. Atena suffered terribly as she often does. She this is her third time as a prisoner. And this last time her health suffered and she resorted to hunger strike. But I guess the way to put it would be that yes it's galling when a country aspires to, for example, EU membership or or a seat at the top table NATO or some of these other international cross border organizations and so on like Turkey does and then fails to keep up with its obligations to, to freedom the press and freedom expression.
In the days before this cartoon was published, so July of last year his home was raided. He disappeared for four, eight hours. His whereabouts were run unknown. Eventually the police admitted that he was with them. He had since been interrogated asked about his cartoons, asked about what he was trying to achieve with them and was ultimately charged with supporting terrorism.
But what has happened in the meantime, unfortunately, is his wife was arrested. And similarly charged with support terrorism, all because of an interview that, that was conducted for a press interview where she spoke about Ashraf and the case. Fortunately rather than her entering the same state of limbo she was granted bail.
They also dumped a syndicate that they had been supporting as part of The New York Times, which was Cartoonists and Writers Syndicate that had been around for many years. Jerry Robinson, who famously created the Joker character in Batman comics ran this international cartoon syndicate and it had a database on the New York Times, and they just killed it immediately.
Terry Anderson: and again my previous point, yes. The on the honorable thing to do would've been for the editor to carry the can for this. Whatever consequences there had to be should have come to the editor because the tar doesn't appear naturally without the editor's approval and and input.
But I think broadly there's not much disagreement about that. You've got the star of David by itself without being part of the Israeli flag, which indicates the religion rather than the state. You've got Netanyahu as this German dachshund, which is a kind of a Nazi reference. You've got you've got Trump with a yarmulke.
Terry Anderson: Yeah. And it was around about the time, I think ever since the attacks, everyone knows about the attacks, some 10 years ago now at Charlie Hebdo.
He cannot abide being cartooned which of course just makes you target for more cartoons. The trick is to ignore them. When you make a big deal out of the fact that you've been cartooned or caricatured, you're just inviting more of the same. So in this particular case we have him a caricature and pretty un flattering terms.
The Turkish cartoon scene was very comparable and reflected what we see in other European countries like France, Spain et cetera. All of that eaten away during the Erdogan years. So that in itself kinda makes him a target, for cartoonists outside and especially if they want to express solidarity with the cartoonists who've been targeted within.
He can make it about the EU. Anyway I enjoyed this kerfuffle and I enjoy seeing the cartonists annoy Erdogan so, and. So this one makes me smile. There was a cartoonist some time ago who was in jail, who's been released Musa Kart, and there was a worldwide effort among cartoonists to draw cartoons on his behalf.