Ithaca N.Y.—“My country is under a dictatorship, so even if you don’t want to talk about politics — politics is everywhere.”
Pedro X. Molina, renowned Nicaraguan cartoonist, has been awarded the Vaclav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent for his work as a political cartoonist. That work has continued since Molina fled his home during a crackdown on politically vocal media members, settling in Ithaca as a guest of the organization Ithaca City of Asylum and teaching at Ithaca College. Established in 2012 by the Human Rights Foundation, the Vaclav Havel award recognizes artists who use their work for dissent.
Pedro X. Molina is profiled by his new hometown news source The Ithaca Voice.
His work was not unnoticed, attracting the attention of the Nicaraguan government, which in 2018 raided the offices of Confidencial, the news organization Molina worked for, as part of a wide campaign of intimidation, arrests and incarceration of journalists.In response, Molina left the country with his family and arrived in the city of Ithaca, as a guest of Asylum through the Ithaca of City of Asylum organization.
“If we wanted to keep doing independent journalism and talk about the abuses of the regime, we were forced to go into exile,” Molina said. “That’s not only me, many of my colleagues were [also] forced to leave.”
The crackdown on dissent continues today…
A lesson on treasuring liberty for Independence Day in the U.S.
Pedro X. Molina website and a cartoon gallery at Cornell University.
Recent cartoons by Pedro syndicated by Counterpoint and featured at GoComics.
