Cartoonists Rights

Posted 6th July 2023

R&C is proud to work with Cartoonists Rights, which safeguards the right to freedom of expression around the world for cartoonists. In the UK, we have a robust cartooning tradition: satire and parody are part of the fabric of our democracy. But elsewhere, a cartoon can lead to its creator being imprisoned or even executed.

Chinese diplomats are currently seeking to censor the work of Badiucao, with calls to close Badi’s latest exhibit in Warsaw, Poland. The same happened with exhibitions in Italy and the Czech Republic.

Badiucao casts Chinese President Xi Jinping eating human flesh, in an allusion to Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son. President Xi Jinping evidently objects, but for Badiucao the point is this:

A story of ongoing human rights violations, the manipulation of historical memory of the 1989 Tiananmen Square events, censorship inflicted on Chinese citizens during the Covid-19 pandemic, forced cultural assimilation of the Uyghurs, protests in which Hong Kong residents fought to oppose government policy, and the disturbing relationship between China and Russia in light of the war in Ukraine.