Hadi Heidari
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| Hadi Heidari | |
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 Hadi Heydari |
Hadi Heidari is a 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.
In 2009 Heidari was jailed for several weeks during a crackdown following the disputed re-election of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad[3] In addition to imprisonment in 2009, he had been arrested in 2010 and 2012.[4]
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.[5] The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists rates Iran as the fourth most-censored country in the world,[6] and a number of journalists remain in prison.[7]
Heidari was imprisoned in 2015 while working at The Shahrvand, a daily newspaper owned by Iran's Red Crescent Society, the equivalent of the Red Cross.[8] 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.[9]
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]
