Winners of the Kofi Annan Courage in Cartooning Award 2022

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Launched in 2012, the biennial event is held on World Press Freedom Day on 3 May to recognise the talent and courage of cartoonists for their work in challenging conditions and contexts.

The award honours their outstanding contribution to human rights and freedom of expression. The prize this year is worth CHF 15,000. The 2020 edition had to be cancelled due to the Covid pandemic.

The jury comprised:

• Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch (chair),
• Sami Kanaan, City of Geneva,
• Ann Telnaes, cartoonist (USA),
• Kak (France), cartoonist, chair of Cartooning for Peace,
• Chappatte (Switzerland), cartoonist, chair of Freedom Cartoonists.

The 2022 winners are the cartoonists Vladimir Kazanevsky from Ukraine and Gábor Pápai from Hungary.

“We are particularly proud to present them with this year’s Kofi Annan Courage in Cartooning Award in the presence of the two eminent co-recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize, the journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov, with whom they share a sense of justice and a determination to resist. For cartoonists, this fight takes place through an art form that has the power to show the king with no clothes and the autocrat in all his brutality,” said Patrick Chappatte, Chair of the Freedom Cartoonists Foundation.

Vladimir Kazanevsky, Ukraine

One of Ukraine’s leading cartoonists, Vladimir Kazanevsky was working in his studio early in the morning of 24 February when he heard loud explosions near the airport. He and his wife found themselves in western Ukraine alongside the multitude of families fleeing the bombings. They decided to cross the Polish border and make for Presov, a town in Slovakia with a community of artists.

Despite being deprived of his drawing materials, his catalogues and his books, all of which were left behind in Kyiv, Vladimir Kazanevsky continued to draw non-stop: Putin in action, on a tank or on the bow of the Titanic. “Autocrats and dictators are afraid of our cartoons – with good reason, since our drawings are weapons in motion,” he says.e», dit-il.

Fiercely determined to fight against Russian aggression, the 71-year-old considers his work an act of resistance. A defence of freedom of expression against war propaganda.

Gábor Pápai, Hungary

For several years, the Hungarian cartoonist Gábor Pápai and his newspaper Népszava – the last remaining opposition daily in Budapest – have been subjected to attacks and legal proceedings by the authorities – in the very heart of the European Union!

The Catholic religion, the fight against Covid or simply Hungarian history are all pretexts for prosecution used by the authorities in a country ranked 92nd in the 2021 world press freedom index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). A shameful situation putting all independent media in a very difficult position – one that has been deteriorating ever since Viktor Orbán became Prime Minister. Some, like Népszava, are facing an acute existential threat. Far from being intimidated, Gábor Pápai continues to observe and draw political life in Hungary.

An exhibition on the Quai Wilson

Works by the 2022 award winners are on display on the Quai Wilson until 31 May 2022. Featuring 60 editorial cartoons assembled by the Swiss Freedom Cartoonists Foundation in partnership with the Cartooning for Peace Network (Paris) and Cartoonists Rights Network International (USA) and chosen by the curator, Patrick Chappatte, the exhibition focuses on three topical themes::

• “the war Europe”,
• “a life of COVID”,
• “the climate is hot!”.

The biennial international prize awarded in Geneva will henceforth alternate with the Robert Russell Courage in Cartooning Award presented in the United States by the NGO Cartoonists Rights Network International, a partner of the Swiss foundation. This move by the two organisations is aimed at strengthening recognition for editorial cartoons worldwide.