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Comic Ris

Iranian artist Farghadani, who drew parliament as

animals, sentenced to 12-plus years
By Michael Cavna June 1

ATENA FARGHADANI has just been sentenced for, in effect, drawing Iranian leaders as monkeys and cows. Given
the absurd ruling, perhaps she should have drawn the rule of draconian law, and her legal proceedings, as a kangaroo
court instead.
Farghadani, a 28-year-old Iranian artist and activist, rendered visual judgment last year, lampooning members of her
nations parliament over their vote to restrict contraception and ban certain birth-control methods just one of her
works satirizing the government. Tehrans Revolutionary Court has now announced that it is rendering its own brand of
judgment.
Farghadani has been sentenced to 12 years and nine months in an Iranian prison, according to the International
Campaign for Human Rights and the Northern Virginia-based Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI).
According to some sources, the longest that she can legally be imprisoned is seven years and six months, and an appeal
is said to be planned.
The artists crimes include insulting members of parliament through paintings and spreading propaganda against the
system, according to Amnesty International.
Obviously, everyone at CRNI is stunned and saddened by the developments, Joel Pett, the human-rights groups
president, tells The Posts Comic Riffs on Monday.
Im personally heartbroken and angry that we were not able to do more to help, adds Pett, the Pulitzer-winning
political cartoonist for the Lexington Herald-Leader.
[CRNI: Free-speech cartoonists vs. legal and mortal threats [Q&A]]
Farghadani, a former fine-arts student who has expressed her opinions prominently through provocative works, was
arrested last August and held for months. She was released for several weeks late last year before being rearrested after
she spoke out about her mistreatment at the hands of guards. After her second incarceration, in Tehrans infamous Evin
Prison, she went on a hunger strike in February, reportedly suffered a heart attack and at one point lost consciousness.
(Amnesty International details her timeline here, including her attempts to draw in prison by using flattened paper cups

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as her canvas.)

One political cartoonist particularly knowledgeable about her plight is Iranian American artist Nikahang Kowsar. Now a
CRNI board member based in the Washington area, Kowsar was jailed in his native Iran 15 years ago for his cartoons
critical of the countrys leaders.
Atena is being punished for something many of us have been doing in Iran: drawing politicians as animals, without
naming them, Kowsar tells The Posts Comic Riffs. Of course, I drew a crocodile and made a name that rhymed with
the name of powerful Ayatollah, and caused a national security crisis in 2000. What Atena drew was just an innocent
take on what the parliamentarians are doing, and based on the Iranian culture, monkeys are considered the followers
and imitators, [and] cows are the stupid ones.
Many members of the Iranian parliament are just following the leaders without any thoughts.
After her initial release, several months ago, she made a video detailing her mistreatment, and was vocal about prison
abuses leading, observers believe, to her second detention.
Farghadani was brave enough to say what she had witnessed in prison, and she was beaten up by the security agents for
that reason near the courtroom, in front of her parents, Kowsar tells Comic Riffs. She had talked about the
[monitoring] video cameras she had seen near the showers.
A key factor in Farghadanis case, Kowsar believes, is judicial discrimination. Shes not a relative or a close person to
powerful people , Kowsar says. Atena does not have any real support coming from the reformists and the politicians
close to the Rouhani government.
Koswar believes that Farghadanis case has also been hurt by the fact Irans judicial system lacks juries.
Judge [Abolghassem] Salavati, the same person in charge of [jailed Post journalist] Jason Rezaians case, is known to
be ruthless, he says, and I believe Atena is a victim of the judicial system, Salavati, and people who should have
supported her all together.

rann ektirdikleri: Karikatrist Atena Farghadaninin Bana Gelenler http://t.co/K3in4XqCT5 #FreeAtena

iler Ercan (@cilerercan) May 24, 2015

Writer/artist/visual storyteller Michael Cavna is creator of the "Comic Ris" column and
graphic-novel reviewer for The Post's Book World. He relishes sharp-eyed satire in most any
form.