Hadi Heidari

The Blindfolded Men by Hadi Heidari

Heidari was imprisoned while working at The Shahrvand, a daily newspaper owned by Iran’s Red Crescent Society, the equivalent of the Red Cross.[3] 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.[4]

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]

Heidari's cartoon responding to the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris

At the time of his arrest, Heidari had recently gained international attention[5] with another of his cartoons, which depicted the Eiffel Tower in tearful solidarity with the people of France over the attacks on Paris by Islamic State in 2015.[3] Iran's state news media have blamed France’s policies toward Syria for the attacks,[6] and Heidari's imprisonment occurred shortly after his Paris cartoon appeared.[7]

On 26 April 2016, Heidari announced his release, thanking his supporters and posting an image on Instagram of a dove being freed from its cage.[5] It was not the first time he had been imprisoned. During 2009, he was also jailed for several weeks during a crackdown following the disputed re-election of then-President Mahmud Ahmadinejad[8] He was imprisoned in 2009 for 17 days.[9]

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.[10] The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists rates Iran as the fourth most-censored country in the world,[11] and a number of journalists remain in prison.[12]