Charlie Hebdo, Social Threats by an Italian Cartoonist

Former worker, now retired, Paolo Lombardi is the author of a cartoon depicting a woman urinating on a portrait of Ayatollah Khamenei. His drawing appeared on the front page of the special issue commemorating the 2015 Paris newsroom bombing and targeting the Tehran regime’s crackdown.

Lombardy already has a recognized track record in French newspapers having published caricatures of Le Monde and Le Figaro and in other publications. Regarding the Charlie Hebdo affair, he explained: “I participated in a competition organized by the French newspaper and then I discovered that I was among the 35 illustrators chosen for publication, even on the front page. This cartoon is the result of my indignation at what is happening in Iran. I consider freedom of expression fundamental. Almost All designers are Iranian and they take more risks than me. I have an Iranian friend from whom I no longer hear.”

And he adds: In the past, “I have done other work but I have been drawing all my life. I have been attacked before, it happened to me for example because of cartoons about Erdogan. But I keep doing it because through satire I am convinced that I am also defending freedom.” . The Tuscan cartoonist usually publishes his drawings on the Internet: in 2008 he was noticed and his first cartoon was printed on Stern, then contracts arrived with some Dutch newspapers, with the Turkish press and with a French agency that opened the street before Le Figaro and then Le. mond. Caricature of Renzi, Meloni, Erdogan and many advocates of international politics.