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Doğan Güzel

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Doğan Güzel
OccupationCartoonist Edit this on Wikidata

Doğan Güzel is a Kurdish Turkish-born cartoonist.[1] He is best known for his satirical comic strip Qirix.

Early life

Doğan Güzel is from Diyarbakır, a city in southeastern Turkey that is the unofficial capital of the region of Turkish Kurdistan.[2]

Career

Doğan Güzel initially drew his comic strip Qirix for the newspaper Özgür Gündem from 1992 to 1995. "Qirix" is a pejorative name for a Kurdish masculine character type and the strip follows one example named Keko.[3]

On July 31, 1998, Güzel was arrested and imprisoned in Istanbul's Bayrampasa Prison for four 1993 cartoons he drew for the pro-Kurdish publications Özgür Gündem and Özgür Ülke.[4][5] Each cartoon included the phrase "Khape TC", which is usually translated as "the lax or weak Republic of Turkey,"[4][5][6] though the slang word "khape" also means "prostitute" or " bastard."[7] He was sentenced to forty months – ten months for each cartoon – in prison for "insulting the State" under Article 159 of the Turkish Penal Code, which criminalizes a wide-range of expression.[4][5] (It was replaced in 2005 with Article 301.) He spent a year in prison before he was pardoned and released on September 16, 1999 by Turkish President Süleyman Demirel.[5] Güzel was awarded the first annual Award for Courage in Editorial Cartooning by the Cartoonists Rights Network International in 1999.[5]

In 2012, Güzel sought political asylum in Spain, moved to Seville, and became a naturalized Spanish citizen.[1][8]

When visiting Instanbul, Güzel was again arrested at the offices of Özgür Gündem on August 17, 2016. In the wake of the July 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt, the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan closed over 100 media outlets and arrested dozens of journalists. A court ruled that Özgür Gündem was a "mouthpiece" of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and thus publishing “a terrorist organization’s propaganda." Police raided the offices of Özgür Gündem, seizing computers, beating journalists, and yelling "Armenians, Jews, sons of Lenin; you are going to find out about the strength of the Turkish state." Doğan Güzel was arrested along with nearly two dozen journalists. A photograph of Güzel in police custody with his shirt nearly torn off became a symbol for those protesting attacks on the Turkish press. Güzel and 22 journalists were released two days later.[1][2][8][9][10][11][12]

In addition to his work as a newspaper cartoonist, Güzel contributed to the magazine Meme[6] and illustrated the 1998 historical novel Ataların Karşılaşması by Cemal Resid Ahmed.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b c Williams, Maren (August 18, 2016). "Turkish Cartoonist Arrested Along With Newspaper Colleagues". Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Archived from the original on 2016-08-29. Retrieved 2019-11-20.
  2. ^ a b Martorell, Manuel (2016-08-19). "El dibujante Dogan Guzel denuncia haber sido golpeado por la Policía turca". Cuartopoder (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 2020-09-22. Retrieved 2019-11-20.
  3. ^ Serap Ruken Sengul (18 April 2013). "Qirix: An "Inverted Rhapsody" of Kurdish National Struggle, Gender, and Everyday Life in Diyarbakir". In Kamala Visweswaran (ed.). Everyday Occupations: Experiencing Militarism in South Asia and the Middle East. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-4487-8.
  4. ^ a b c "Cartoonist Dogan Güzel sentenced to prison". Info-Türk. June–July 1998. Archived from the original on 2001-12-02. Retrieved 2019-11-20.
  5. ^ a b c d e f "UPDATE: DOĞAN GÜZEL". Cartoonists Rights Network International. April 2014. Archived from the original on 2015-02-09. Retrieved 2019-11-20.
  6. ^ a b "Dogan Güzel". lambiek.net. Retrieved 2019-11-20.
  7. ^ "Imprisoned". Committee to Protect Journalists. Archived from the original on 2001-01-15. Retrieved 2019-11-20.
  8. ^ a b 20minutos (2016-08-17). "Detenido el caricaturista español Dogan Güzel por la policía turca". www.20minutos.es – Últimas Noticias (in Spanish). Retrieved 2019-11-20.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  9. ^ "Turkish police close Kurdish daily, arrest more than 20 journalists | Reporters without borders". RSF. 2016-08-17. Retrieved 2019-11-26.
  10. ^ "Cartoonist Dogan Güzel Among Journalists Arrested In Turkey Press Purge — Update". CARTOONISTS RIGHTS NETWORK INTERNATIONAL. 2016-08-19. Retrieved 2019-11-26.
  11. ^ "Ugly Purge Lands a Turkish Cartoonist in Jail – Again". DarylCagle.com. 18 August 2016. Archived from the original on 2016-08-22. Retrieved 2019-11-26.
  12. ^ "Cartooning for Peace". www.cartooningforpeace.org (in French). Retrieved 2019-11-26.
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