By: E&P Staff As the turbulence in his native land continues unabated, Iranian cartoonist-in-exile Nik Kowsar has called the unrest "the uprising of the middle class."
"The silent majority hates [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad," Kowsar
tells Michael Cavna of The Washington Post's Comic Riffs blog. "Former supporters weren't supporting him. The Guard and the council and the interior ministry didn't let the silent majority in on what was going on ... It's not important who votes -- it's important who counts the votes."
A former geology student, Kowsar has been an editorial cartoonist since 1993. In February 2000, he was arrested and imprisoned for six days. "I had drawn a cartoon with a crocodile [strangling a cartoonist with its tail] that referred to a powerful ayatollah," he tells Cavna in the interview, published on Friday. "Clergy students and ayatollahs asked for my death ... They started with one cartoon but [suddenly] here was 168 cartoons. They [accused me and imprisoned me] for attacking Islam and defaming prophets."
Kowsar left Iran in 2003 after receiving a death threat. He settled in Toronto with his family. He currently draws cartoons for Rooz, an online news site that publishes five days a week. His work has appeared in The New York Times, as well as The Washington Post; The Globe and Mail, of Toronto; and The Guardian in Britain.
"When I post a cartoon, I see that many of my friends are sharing my cartoons -- by that, I mean tens of thousands are getting these cartoons and e-mailing them," said Kowsar. "I believe my cartoons are on the same frequency as to what the Iranian people are feeling. It helps them."
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