To mark World Press Freedom Day, the Freedom Cartoonists Foundation, in partnership with the City of Geneva, pays tribute to the talent and courage of cartoonists working in challenging environments.
Safaa Odah is a Palestinian cartoonist living in Gaza (a member of Cartooning for Peace). Before the war escalated in 2023, she created cartoons, comic strips, and posters on women’s empowerment and aimed at young people. Since October 2023, her drawings have borne witness to the terrible daily life of Gazans during the war. Amid extreme violence and in total deprivation, the Palestinian cartoonist has been documenting the dramatic situation of Gazans for the past two and a half years. Since her family home was destroyed by a bombing two years ago, Safaa Odah and her family have been living in the Khan Younes camp.
Her simple, almost naive style stands up to the roar of bombs. Safaa Odah’s favorite themes are universal—family love, mourning, hunger and poverty, peace—and offer a poignant perspective on the occupation and displacement of the people of Gaza. Her drawings express what words fail to convey and bear witness to a horror that the world tolerates.
She continues to draw cartoons under extremely difficult conditions, using whatever materials she can gather—for example, drawing on the plastic tarp that serves as her family’s tent—and posting them on social media.
Jimmy “Spire” Ssentongo (a member of Cartooning for Peace) is a Ugandan academic, columnist, portrait artist, author, and award-winning self-taught cartoonist. Among other outlets, he has been working for the Ugandan newspaper The Observer since 2006. Holding a Ph.D. in philosophy, he served as associate dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Uganda Martyrs University.
Frequently harassed, Spire has been in the authorities’ crosshairs since the 2020 pandemic. In March 2024, he received death threats after launching an anti-corruption campaign on X—#UgandaParliamentExhibition—calling out parliament and demanding accountability.
Spire’s humor and critical analysis amplify the impact of his cartoons, which have become popular and gone viral. In them, the Ugandan intellectual denounces corruption, institutional abuses, and the abuses of power.
A victim of cyberbullying, he has long been forced into a form of hiding. In January 2026, he temporarily sought refuge in Belgium to escape the growing pressure as the presidential election approached.
The 2026 Kofi Annan Courage in Cartooning Award, honoring their exceptional contribution to human rights and freedom of expression, will be presented this evening, Monday, May 4, 2026, at 6 p.m., during a public ceremony at the Geneva Graduate Institute, in the presence of Joseph Stiglitz, 2001 Nobel laureate in economics, former chief economist of the World Bank, and professor at Columbia University.
The International Cartoon Award has been presented every two years since 2012 by the Freedom Cartoonists Foundation and the City of Geneva. In odd-numbered years, the prize is awarded by the partner organization Cartoonists Rights in the United States.
The presentation of the International Prize is traditionally accompanied by an exhibition of press cartoons in the world’s most beautiful art gallery, the Quai Wilson, on the shores of Lake Geneva.
The 2026 edition is dedicated to three topical issues as depicted by cartoonists from around the world: new empires, the impact of artificial intelligence and freedoms
under attack.
This exhibition, organised in partnership with the Cartooning for Peace network, is open throughout the month of May.
