From February 2025 to July 2026, Cartooning for Peace is implementing the project ‘Spotlight on the situation of press cartoonists around the world’, with the support of the Global Media Defense Fund (GMDF) administered by UNESCO, and the Centre Français de la Copie (CFC).
Against a backdrop of increasing criminalisation of journalists and the rise of authoritarian regimes worldwide, press cartoonists are often on the front line of repression. This 18-month project aims to compile, document and highlight cases of threats and/or attacks against them, with a view to raising awareness of their situation and making a number of recommendations to support them.
As part of the project, academic research is being conducted into the online experience of cartoonists to gain a better understanding of the online censorship and insecurity they face on digital platforms. From February to July 2025, a questionnaire comprising 47 questions was developed and then distributed in four languages (French, English, Spanish and Arabic) worldwide in partnership with the Forum for Humour and Law (ForHum) at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, with the support of Global Freedom of Expression at Columbia University.
Academics Ana Pedrazzini, a researcher in communication and semiotic studies at the Patagonian Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences (IPEHCS), CONICET, at the National University of Comahue in Argentina, and Alberto Godioli, associate professor and co-founder of ForHum, are conducting their research based on data collected from a panel of 258 cartoonists who responded to the questionnaire.
This research, published in March 2026, provides a clearer picture of the extent of online censorship, threats, insults and insecurity to which press cartoonists are exposed. The full report is available in English on the Zenodo website: Report on ‘Cartoonists Online: Global Free Expression Survey’.
In March 2026, Cartooning for Peace published *Under Pressure: Report on the Situation of Press Cartoonists (2023–2025)*.
This report is the result of a collaboration between Cartooning for Peace and Cartoonists Rights, in partnership with the Freedom Cartoonists Foundation, the Forum for Humor and the Law (ForHum), Columbia Global Freedom of Expression at Columbia University, and Reporters Without Borders.
The report opens with an alarming assessment of the decline of American democracy and presents geographical and thematic analyses provided by numerous contributors, including the French cartoonist Riss of Charlie Hebdo, Reporters Without Borders, Artists at Risk Connection and the Freedom Cartoonists Foundation.
It also presents an analytical summary of the findings of research into the online experience of press cartoonists. The data revealed highlights a worrying level of online censorship and threats, which often go unnoticed, whilst cartoonists are seeing their place in newsrooms dwindle. The report contains a series of 21 recommendations for advocacy purposes, particularly aimed at digital platforms.
Cartooning for Peace and its partners presented the report on the situation of threatened press cartoonists worldwide (2023–2025) at a number of events:
To mark 3 May, World Press Freedom Day, Europeans Without Borders (ESF), Cartooning for Peace (CFP) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) have joined forces for CARICARTOONS, a campaign celebrating press freedom.
The animated cartoons for the campaign are taken from the report “Under Pressure”, on the situation of threatened cartoonists (2023–2025)
This new project builds on two previous projects in support of press cartoonists, carried out with the GMDF-UNESCO:
Cartoon: Zehra (Türkiye)
Find out more about alerts concerning press cartoonists around the world here.
