Death threats forces Colombia cartoonist off social media

From Colombia Reports.

The "betrayal" of  the subconscious

- And do not try to betray me Dr. Ivan Marquez

- I mean... Doctor Ivan Duque

As Colombia´s election race is heating up, some leading public personalities abandon social media amid threats and harassment from political fanatics and extremists.

One of the country’s most famous political cartoonists, Julio Gonzalez (Matador) announced on Tuesday that he would stop publishing his cartoons on social media.

According to the political satirist, he has received death threats over his criticism of conservative presidential candidate Ivan Duque and hard-right former President Alvaro Uribe.

The death threats followed an attempt by a supporter of Duque and Uribe to ban a cartoon in which Duque was depicted as a pig.

The situation escalated when an alleged Uribe supporter sent a tweet to Matador lamenting the absence of late paramilitary leader Carlos Castaño “to shut him up.”

“If they want to come for me, I do not have bodyguards or anything … I have a pencil and my brain, and the people who follow me, a big hug,” he said in potentially his last Tweet.

With presidential elections coming up in May, the polarized nature of the Colombian political landscape is showing its head already with the public bitterly divided between the staunchly conservative Duque and Petro, a social democrat.