Ecuadorian cartoonist Javier Bonilla “Bonil” of the newspaper El Universo claimed he received threats on Facebook, reported the non-governmental organization Fundamedios. According to the NGO, the cartoonist posted on his personal account on March 11, “This is an example of some of the threats coming from an incomprehensible hate. If I put this up on Facebook it’s because we should shut up,” added the organization.
Bonil told Fundamedios that the threats and angry comments directed at him started with a cartoon published last Jan. 21, which provoked the ire of President Rafael Correa who demanded the newspaper publish an apology. The cartoonist added that the comments and threats used the same language the president did to insult the press, which he believed “respond to a hostil climate that encourages intransigence, intolerance and aggression in debate,” reported Fundamedios.
In an interview with the newspaper La República, Bonil said that despite the situation he has no intention of ending his career as a cartoonist: “a drawing is like when I breath,” he said. The cartoonist added that his work does not seek to offend anyone but rather to show his country’s reality with a little bit of humor.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
