Hadi Heidari

Hadi Heidari is an award-winning press cartoonist in Tehran, Iran, whose work has appeared in reformist newspapers including Shargh, Norooz and Neshat.^[1] He is 39, and has a degree in painting from Tehran’s Arts and Architecture University.^[2] Heidari was imprisoned in 2015 for a cartoon that offended members of the government.

Arrest and imprisonment

The Blindfolded Men by Hadi Heidari

Heidari was imprisoned while working at The Shahrvand, a daily newspaper owned by Iran’s Red Crescent Society, the equivalent of the Red Cross.^[3] He was sent to Tehran’s Evin Prison to complete a suspended one-year jail sentence imposed in 2013 for his "Blindfold" cartoon, which had been published in the Shargh; leading to a three-month shutdown of that publication.^[4]

The Revolutionary Guards had filed a suit against Heidari for his cartoon, which showed a lineup of people, each tying a black blindfold on the next person in line. The cartoon had no caption, leading to several different interpretations.^[1] Several politicians alleged that the cartoon had been intentionally released during the week of Holy Defence (a term referring to the eight-year Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s). According to the politicians, the blindfolds "reflected the black headband worn by Iranian soldiers – and suggested that the soldiers went to war blindly",^[1] and that the cartoon offended veterans of that war.^[2]

Cartoon responding to Paris terror attacks

Heidari's cartoon responding to the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris

At the time of his arrest, Heidari had recently gained international attention^[5] with another of his cartoons, which depicted the Eiffel Tower in tearful solidarity with the people of France over the attacks on Paris by Islamic State in 2015.^[3] Iran's state news media have blamed France’s policies toward Syria for the attacks,^[6] and Heidari's imprisonment occurred shortly after his Paris cartoon appeared.^[7]

Release

On 26 April 2016, Heidari announced his release, thanking his supporters and posting an image on Instagram of a dove being freed from its cage.^[5] It was not the first time he had been imprisoned. During 2009, he was also jailed for several weeks during a crackdown following the disputed re-election of then-President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.^[8]

One commentator suggests that in the Muslim world, political cartoons offer a reliable way to get a point across to people who can't read.^[9] The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists rates Iran as the fourth most-censored country in the world,^[10] and a number of journalists remain in prison.^[11]

References