Release of Atena Farghadani

From Cartooning for Peace. 

Atena Farghadani was violently arrested on 13 April 2024 by intelligence agents of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) when she tried to display a drawing near the presidential palace in Tehran. 

Since then, she was held in Evin prison, infamous for its detention conditions. She has just been released after nearly 8 months in prison.

On 10 June, she was sentenced to 6 years’ imprisonment by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Revolutionary Court, including 5 years for “insulting the sacred” and one year for “propaganda against the State”. 

These charges were clearly motivated by her commitment and opinions.

On 10 December 2024, her lawyer announced her release, following a decision by the Court of Appeal. 

On 9 December, a post on the cartoonist’s Instagram account stated that Atena Farghadani ‘was acquitted of the charge of insulting the sacred, and was sentenced to 8 months for her cartoon on class disparity.’ 

This new 8-month prison sentence, which appears to have been issued retrospectively, relates to a cartoon entitled ‘Class inequality’.

This appeal decision comes in a context in which other figures imprisoned for their stance, such as the rapper Toomaj Saleh, arrested in October 2022 and whose death sentence was overturned in June 2024 by the Supreme Court, and Narges Mohammadi, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 and imprisoned since November 2021, have also seen their situation change.


Cartooning for Peace welcomes the release of Atena Farghadani, who was unjustly arrested, beaten and sentenced because of her commitment to human rights and freedom of expression, but reiterates that no one should be imprisoned for expressing their beliefs. While her release is a relief, it also underlines the need to continue to denounce the injustices rampant in Iran.