The death of Akram Raslan, an artist known for his

political cartoons A political cartoon, a form of editorial cartoon, is a cartoon graphic with caricatures of public figures, expressing the artist's opinion. An artist who writes and draws such images is known as an editorial cartoonist. They typically combine ...

, at the hands of the

government of Syria Government of the Syrian Arab Republic is the union government created by the constitution of Syria where by the President of Syria, president is the head of state and the Prime Minister of Syria, prime minister is the head of government. Execut ...

brought condemnation from various publications around the world. Drawing themes from the Syrian civil war, Raslan had drawn images expressing criticism of Syrian leader

Bashar al-Assad Bashar Hafez al-Assad, ', Levantine pronunciation: ; (, born 11 September 1965) is a Syrian politician who is the 19th president of Syria, since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the ...

and Assad's actions against the Syrian people, as well as criticism of institutions such as the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

. While the cartoonist died in 2013, partial confirmation of the facts around the event were not released until 2015. However, many details remain uncertain.

Background

Akram Raslan was born in the

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

n city of

Hama , timezone = EET , utc_offset = +2 , timezone_DST = EEST , utc_offset_DST = +3 , postal_code_type = , postal_code = , ar ...

in 1974. He was awarded the

Cartoonists Rights Network, International Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI) is a non-profit organisation created in 1999 in the United States by Dr. Robert "Bro" Russell. It looks to protect the human rights and creative freedom of social and editorial cartoonists. CRNI "en ...

(CRNI)'s 2013 winner of the Award for Courage in Editorial Cartooning. Since the Syrian Civil War, along with many of Syria's artists, poets, writers and activists, Raslan remained incarcerated. He reportedly faced

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...

at the hands of his captors. The news service Albawaba.com ran an article commenting that the "story of Raslan's detainment has become a disturbingly common one for Syrian dissidents."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Raslan, Akram Syrian cartoonists People from Hama Syrian contemporary artists Syrian male artists 1974 births 2013 deaths

Background

See also

References