Media crews filming the Gagged exhibition wall.
Our GAGGED exhibition on the suppression and censorship of cartoonists around the world had another outing last week. It was displayed at the international conference ‘Defend Media Freedom’ in London. The conference was instigated by the UK and Canadian governments.
Media freedom is in decline worldwide. It was reported that the number of journalists jailed for their work is at the highest level since the 1990s. We’ve seen an increase of cartoonists around the world being harassed, imprisoned and censored.
Amal Clooney with Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland and UK’s Foreign Secretary (at time of going to press) Jeremy Hunt.
One of the main speakers was human rights lawyer Amal Clooney who said ‘journalists are under attack like never before’. She added that after the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in the Istanbul Saudi Arabian embassy last year, world leaders responded with ‘little more than a collective shrug’. She went on to single out Donald Trump and commented that ‘the country of James Madison (one of America’s founding fathers and a champion of a free press) has a leader today who vilifies the media.’ There have been a number of cases recently where cartoonists in the States (and Canada) have had their work censored and lost long-standing work.
Jeremy Hunt spoke of meeting Malaysian cartoonist Zunar who suffered years of persecution and restrictions but is now enjoying more freedom since the regime change in his home country.
A powerful and colourful mural being painted live by ArtLords a street art collective from Afghanistan. Here’s an Index on Censorship film about them.
Every plaque on the wall names a media worker killed over the past years, 99 died worldwide in 2018 alone.
PCO member Alex Hughes from Drawnalism was transcribing the talks in cartoon form (he produced more work in two days than I do in a year)
Terry Anderson (Cartoonist & Deputy Exec Director, CRNI) with Jodie Ginsberg (Chief Executive, Index on Censorship)
A gagged Marshall
In September GAGGED is moving on to the Saint-Just Cartoon Festival in France.