Posted in: Comics | Tagged: cartoon, the lakes, Zehra Ömeroğlu

Zehra Ömeroğlu Finally Gets Robert Russell Courage In Cartooning Award

Zehra Ömeroğlu finally gets the Robert Russell Courage In Cartooning Award 2025, at The Lakes Comic Art Festival

Turkish cartoonist Zehra Ömeroğlu was finally presented with the Robert Russell Courage in Cartooning Award 2025 at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival this weekend. Human Rights NGO Cartoonists Rights announced Zehra as the recipient of the award earlier in the year in Washington, DC, at a special event marking World Press Freedom Day, but she was unable to accept the Award in person.

Cartoonists Rights' Executive Director, Terry Anderson, said earlier this year: "I'm delighted our Board of Directors chose to honour Zehra this year, especially as we witness the change that is unfolding in Turkey. In our view, her prosecution is based wholly on her gender; the same cartoon, in the same space and at the same time with a male byline, simply would not have attracted the same (over)reaction from state censors. Like many outspoken women in Turkey, Zehra has been deliberately persecuted, but this attempt to silence her has wholly backfired. As a direct result of her prosecution, Zehra's cartoons are now seen in international media on a regular basis, and her story will soon be told in a new graphic novel project that she's working on right now. We commend her bravery and resilience, and above all her undaunted sense of humour."

Speaking when she was announced as the winner of the award earlier this year, Zehra Ömeroğlu said: "My heartfelt thanks to Cartoonists Rights and all its partners. Thank you for encouraging me to keep drawing despite all the difficulties. I'm so happy to receive this award. It's really important to me."

Following the publication of a cartoon in the Turkish adult humour magazine LeMan in November 2020, Ms Ömeroğlu, currently based in Europe, has been the subject of an ongoing criminal prosecution in Turkey on the grounds of "obscenity." The maximum penalty is three years in prison.

Proceedings began against her in 2022, as she was summoned to a police station, she initially thought that they wanted to speak to her about a cartoon that had been attracting many negative comments, including threats to her safety, and portraying hijabi women in Iran. Failing this, there was a possibility that the matter was one of her cartoons about President Erdoğan, a notorious persecutor of cartoonists (most notably, Robert Russell Courage in Cartooning 2005 awardee, Musa Kart).

Instead, she was surprised to learn that the cartoon to be discussed was her "taste and smell" gag panel, an adult cartoon comment on well-known aspects of COVID. In the years that followed, a protracted legal process has failed to reach a definitive conclusion. Although finally acquitted in June, Turkish prosecutors still sought to overturn that decision. However, the effects have been deleterious on Ms Ömeroğlu's physical and mental health as well as her prospects.

Currently living in Europe, she considers her career in Turkey is over, as the suspended sentence would curtail her freedom of expression, carrying with it the possibility of even harsher penalties were she to commit another alleged crime. When finally and officially designated as "obscene" in a report issued March 2024 by the Türkish Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Services, Directorate of Child Services' Board for the Protection of Minors from Obscene Publications, Cartoonists Rights responded, saying: "We take great exception to the way in which Ömeroğlu's work is characterised, with a definition that is indistinguishable from that of pornography." They argue that Zehra Ömeroğlu's cartoon may be many things – bawdy, raunchy, rude – but it was published in a well-established adult humour title, alongside and in sequence with many other such cartoons. To suggest it imperils children in any way is outrageous.

Turkey has a long and storied history of cartooning that has deteriorated under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's administration. Cartoonists Rights has highlighted multiple instances of cartoonists being targeted, from the three prosecutions and ultimate imprisonment of Musa Kart to the pressures on such magazines as Gırgır, LeMan, and Penguen and the harassment of Dogan Güzel.

Two partner organisations on both sides of the Atlantic combine forces with a unified program of international awards, recognising the world's bravest cartoonists facing threats to their freedom of expression: the Robert Russell Courage in Cartooning Award (in odd years, awarded by Cartoonists Rights, Washington, DC); and the Kofi Annan Courage in Cartooning Award (in even years, awarded by Freedom Cartoonists, Geneva). Cartoonists Rights was founded by Bro Russell in 1999 as a nonprofit organisation to protect the rights of editorial cartoonists under threat. The organisation was the first global organisation whose core purpose is the protection of cartoonists' rights in the pursuit of freedom of expression without fear. Readers are invited to make a donation to help the cause.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!