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Political Cartoonist Retracts Controversial Syrian Refugee Image

On September 10, political cartoonist Toshiko Hasumi posted a drawing of a girl on Facebook with text that insinuated that refugees were fleeing to Europe to satisfy vain material desires. The drawing prompted an uproar online, including a petition on Change.org demanding that Facebook recognize the drawing as racist and take it down for violating its policy. Facebook has defended the image, but on October 6 Hasumi herself removed it, with the following explanation (edited for spelling):

Photographer Mr. Jonathan Hyams sent me a request to take down my drawing. As I have been mentioning, I respect his intention so I decided to delete the drawing.

This does not mean I changed my thought on the issue but the fact is, I made him feel uncomfortable.

Also what he has been doing in his organization is very valiant work for unfortunate orphans.

I feel sad when I think about his suffering that various messages were suddenly sent to him and would be surprised at.

I hope he will be able to go back to his valuable work without further interruption.

Hasumi admitted that the drawing was based on a photograph taken by Canadian photographer Jonathan Hyams at a refugee camp in Lebanon for the international charity Save the Children.

Hasumi refused to retract her views, however, explaining "I believe that it's good that Japan contribute to the real refugees. My point is, some of them are not real refugees who are trying to take advantage of their chaos situation. We should not tolerate those victimhood business. This will put hardworking decent people who are majority to suffer... The reason why I drew the cartoon is simply warning to the nations specifically Japan (as it was only drawn in Japanese) to consider before accepting so called refugees. Because we already have headaches [referring to Koreans residing in Japan]." She also explained that she chose the photograph as a model because "if I draw old man it will not gain attention."

Meanwhile, some artists are countering Hasumi's opinions with their own; @tkatsumi06j (above) and Kazuyoshi Soejima (below) posted these illustrations on Twitter and Facebook, respectively, with a different text riffing on Hasumi's: "I want to live in safety. I want to lead a clean life. I want to have meals with my family. I want to study at school. I want to play with friends. I want to sleep in a place without gunshots. I want to live in peace without fearing death WITH MY OWN WILL. THAT'S IT - LET'S SUPPORT THEM!"

Hasumi also claimed that many signatories of the petition are inclined to be hostile to her. "I draw many political manga which are not favorable to them," she said. "This is why they targeted me."

[Via Japan Times, Facebook, BBC News and Huffington Post]