Ben Heine hits two times. Above the “Shoe Thrower” inspired to Bansky and dedicated to Muntadar Al-Zaidi. Below something freaky. It was the 4th of January, in Barcelona, placa Sant Jaume. Some people demonstrated pro Palestine and one of them showed the Ben’s artwork The New Palestine Think Tank'.
Image source: AFP - Getty Images
As the Beijing Olympics ended, Amnesty International today accused the Chinese authorities of prioritizing image over substance as it continued to persecute and punish activists and journalists during the Games.
“The Beijing Olympics have been a spectacular sporting event but they took place against a backdrop of human rights violations, with activists prevented from expressing their views peacefully and many in detention when they have committed no crime,” said Roseann Rife, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific Deputy Program Director in Hong Kong.
Housing rights activist, Ye Guozhu , is being held in police custody after completing a four-year prison sentence in connection with his attempts to draw public attention to alleged forced evictions in Beijing due to Olympics-related construction. The police said he would be kept in detention to keep him and his family out of trouble until the Olympics and Paralympics were over. On 26 July, the police sent the family an official detention notice stating that Ye was being held at Xuanwu district police detention centre on suspicion of “gathering a crowd to disturb order in a public place”, but provided no further detail. Amnesty International received reliable reports that police beat him with electroshock batons before his trial and he was subjected to further beatings in prison.
Two elderly women, Wu Dianyuan (aged 79) and Wang Xiuying (aged 77) were accused of “disturbing public order” and assigned to one year of RTL after they applied to demonstrate in one of the official protest zones. They had been petitioning the authorities since 2001 when they were evicted from their homes to make way for a development project. Beijing city officials ruled that they would not have to serve their time in an RTL facility as long as they ‘behaved’, but that restrictions would be placed on their movements.
Source: Amnesty
Illustration: unknow
On cafebabel: Hosting the Olympics won't improve your life
Thanks to Mirada linEa presents
An interview to the editors of the magazine Leman
by Elettra Stamboulis, part III
This is the result of an interview with one of the founders of the turkish magazine Leman, Mehmet Çağçağ, and somehow also to another master of the same magazine, Tuncay Akgün. I thought it would be unuseful to present also questions as far as from the answers you can understand the contest. Reading, you will see it is the story of a comics magazine, but at the same time it offers a view of turkish society in the last years. Check also the part I and II. Don't forget the video interview.
Erdoğan Vs. Leman
Recently Tayyip Erdoğan, the prime minister, opened a lawsuit against me. As the owner of the magazine 13 000 euros and as the caricaturist 13 000 euros , total 26 000 euros. Conservatives are allergic to criticism. This is the 4th lawsuit to the caricatures from the prime minister. The legend magazine Gırgır had a legend editor that all Turkey knows: Oğuz Aral. He once said “God saves the drunks and the caricaturists”. Untill now of course there has been caricaturists that god could not save . The period during military takeover in September 12, 1980, a caricaturist killed by fachists. Two people from our crew have been sentenced to stay in prison, Güneri has been put into prison, Tuncay lived a fugitive life for 15 years.
Leman is distributed in Germany too but the new generation’s turkish cannot understand us. We use a very deep, poetic and street language . Some of the words can’t even be understood by the young people here. At one of the university panel discussions (which we participate often) , one of the readers talked to the youngest caricaturist among us : “ you are using too many old turkish and ottoman words, I can’t understand it sometimes” So it’s impossible to understand for young people in Germany. They can possibly enjoy Leman translated into german. On the other hand there are some young turkish-german people who regularly read Leman and come visit us. They are mostly rappers like: Ceza, Panzer Fuat, Turbo, Ayben...These young people are from the new generation from Germany... One of our caricaturists draw their biographies in Leman.
Caricaturists are free to form their style for drawing. Interference is rare. But caricaturists are humorists first, drawing comes second for them. They see drawing as a tool to express what they want to tell. They are trying to develop a new language, style of their own. The resemblances are common among styles because there is a lot of interaction . They work side by side, all together, like they work in an atelier. That is a tradition of us. Only the masters and the ones over 40 years old send their work through the internet.
The humour magazines I know are : Mad, U Comix, Eco de savanes, Harakiri, Strapazin, Pontiki, Charlie Hebdo, Fluide Classical, Linus, Metal Hurlant. We have a little of all these, but the least Mad, mostly Harakiri and a little Charlie Hebdo. English Viz has inspired us with it’s characters too. For example there was Altan in Linus, if he lived in Turkey, we would definitely had him in Leman. It would be pleasure to have Manara drawing stories like “will continue next week”. There are many Manara fans here. I have seen his work in an exhibition in Germany (or Austria, I don’t remember).
In my world and my style of humour, one of the caricaturists that impressed me when I was young, was Reiser. When I grew older and mature, I was impressed by Wolinski. Two french humourists... Vullemin hits me by his expressionism.
Tuncay eats alittle, I eat a lot. Tuncay is slow hardworker, I am fast hardworker. Tuncay is cautious, I take the risks. Tuncay can’t sit and work, Once I sit and start to work I can’t get up. Tuncay talks little, I talk a lot, Güneri talks 5 times more than both of us. Tuncay and I, we both don’t wake up before the noon. We both prefer home made food, we both hate fast food. We like to have our holidays in the same places, we like the same cafes . We both have been to Italy before but not together at the same time.
The end
Thanks to Mirada linEa presents
An interview to the editors of the magazine Leman
by Elettra Stamboulis, part II
The characters
This is the result of an interview with one of the founders of the turkish magazine Leman, Mehmet Çağçağ, and somehow also to another master of the same magazine, Tuncay Akgün. I thought it would be unuseful to present also questions as far as from the answers you can understand the contest. Reading, you will see it is the story of a comics magazine, but at the same time it offers a view of turkish society in the last years. Check also the video interview and the part I.
Kıllanan Adam:
This is a character created by Ahmet Yılmaz. This is a man : opposing, positive conservative, sceptic to the new values, very respectful and protective for the old values but, on the other hand , dreaming of turkish people to go to outer space one day . Sitting with his undershirt and underpants all the time with a glass of tea, he is the most typical turkish father.
Erkut Abi:
This is a character created by Kaan Ertem. This is a heroic character with super powers. He is against the stupidity, cunning, evil... He has many original methods of punishment. He generally ends up the punishment by throwing the evil to the outer space. Non of the ideas, thoughts,opinions from human-beings can surprise him. Everything in the universe is normal to Erkut Abi, all the humans are abnormal.
Bezgin Bekir:
This is a character created by Tuncay Akgün. He is slow, he is calm. He always sat or lie down over his cushions with his cats and his water pipe (nargile). He is a cheer up, relief for people who feel defeated against the speed of our time. He is an activist, an actionist too. He is intellectual but we feel this not because of his talking but because of his actions and his attitude against the events. “Bezgin Bekir” is now and adjective in daily language to describe a certain type of people.
Daral & Timsah:
These are characters created by Mehmet Çağçağ. These characters’ names are used as an adjective in daily language too. Daral is the son of a ver rich father who is searching for the meaning of life. His mother died when he was a child, his father raised him. He has a huge gap in his soul, he can’t fill it, he is very much bored and he does not know what to do.When they meet, in spite of the truth that they have nothing in common, Daral gets connected to Timsah very strongly. Timsah is broke but to jump to a higher class he likes to live like a bourgeois. He is not intellectual, his world is set on trade marks, luxury and sex. He is a Casanova. This character Timsah has became one of the most popular characters of turkish youth. In the first years I created Timsah, he was extreme and imaginary. But today this character has no originality because there are millions of young turkish people like him.
Kozalak:
This is a character created by Mehmet Çağçağ. He is a taxi driver. He is ignorant, rude, vulgar but courageous and aggressive. He is coming from the village and insisting living in his rules in the city. He is immoral but he is very moralist.He has a girlfriend: Şehriye wearing, covering her head with scarf (turban) and he has a tansvestite lover: Fethi. He runs into a different adventure each week. This is one of the most entertaining characters.
Gönül Adamı:
This is a character created by Güneri İçoğlu. This character is an old Istanbul gentleman, a musician, a “neyzen” (reed flute player). He lives in an old Istanbul district placed on Bosphorus, surrounded by old wooden houses. Gönül Adamı and his french friend Jean Pierre always argue about theWest and the East . He throws simit (tukish round bread with sesames) to the seagulls while travelling the bosphorus by boat (vapur), helps the old style fishermen, runs to help if there is an old wooden house on fire... There is always a tear drop on his eyes because he cant stand to see the big buildings taking place of the old houses one by one. Gönül Adamı too, is an adjective used in the daily language, to describe certain type of people.
To be continued...
"I don’t see myself as a disabled. I am just a man without legs."
Oscar Pistorius of South Africa runs the 400 meters. He has both legs amputated and dreams the Olympic games.
"I am unilateral amputee and Oscar has two prostheses that improve his performance, especially the 200 and 400 meters. Let him run with the unilateral amputees is not fair."
Marlon Shirley is from USA and world record man in the 100 meters for amputees.
"The spring in the limbs gives Pistorius a three to four meter stride which is not humanly possible and hence an unfair advantage."
Davies is spokesman of the International Association of Athletics Federations.
In your opinion, can Oscar take part in the Olympic games?
Drawing by Gianluca Costantini
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