Political Humor Across The Region
1
Mikhail Zlatkovsky's cartoon for RFE/RL's Russian Service is titled, "A thaw is coming to the country," but depicts that change as cosmetic at best. On RFE/RL's Russian website, a caption reads: "The president says freedom is better than lack of freedom."
2
A still image from an animation satirizing the winter energy crisis in which Russia's gas monopoly Gazprom shut off supplies to its neighbors, threatening the gas-inflated authority of Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka. See the full animation by Aleh Minich and Pavel Marozau here.
3
Ukrainian satirical website eggs.com.ua offers another take on the gas crisis, depicting Vladimir Putin as movie villain Dr. Evil with a gas pump. "You didn't want to do it the nice way," it reads; "Now you'll do it my way!"
4
Iranian cartoonist Nikahang Kowsar shows government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham assuring President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, "The opinion polls show us far above everyone else!"
5
The Azerbaijani cartoonist known simply as Sherif illustrates the dangers faced by those who dare to write freely...
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...while another of Sherif's works from the 1990s shows the rising -- but distant -- hope of freedom.
7
An animation from Turkmenistan marking World Press Freedom Day shows President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov demanding to be the only smiling face on television. See the animation here.
8
In this cartoon by late Iraqi artist Moyad Neama, a sycophantic Ba'ath Party member cozies up to a terrorist.
9
Neama takes on corruption in this illustration, in which a wealthy wife asks her husband, "Got any good news? Did you steal something from the government?"