PROFILES

CARLOS LATUFF

Brazilian Cartoonist and Egyptian Revolutionary

By Ambassadors Research Staff

Born in 1968 in Rio de Janeiro, Carlos Latuff’s cartoons are well known to Egypt's youth. They serve as a distant support of an artist working from his desk in Brazil and often are placed on banners held in protests.

Latuff has no university education and has yet to visit Egypt. In an interview he expressed his worry about traveling to Egypt in light of his highly critical cartoons. Latuff's grandfather was Lebanese but he insists this is not the source of his support for Palestinian and Arab rights. Instead, he says he adopts the causes of the disadvantaged and oppressed peoples worldwide. He visited Palestine in 1999 and became an advocate for Palestinian rights.

Before the January 25th revolution in Egypt, Latuff was approached by the administrator of We Are All Khaled Said page on Facebook, Wael Ghonim, who asked him to support their cause and draw something to symbolize the plight of the protesters. He immediately drew five cartoons which he sent to Ghonim. He was surprised to find his cartoons being held aloft by protesters in Tahrir Square. From that point forth, he adopted the uprising as his utmost priority and began following the most intimate of details from Egypt. Over the next few months, Latuff would continue to depict each step of the struggle faced by the protesters, leading many to dub him "The Cartoonist of the Egyptian Revolution."

His large and growing portfolio on Egypt tackles everything from police brutality to the state media's propaganda. His most famous cartoon is one showing a ghost of Khaled Said, the young man killed by police officers in June 2010 whose death inspired the protest movement that led to the revolution. In the caricature, Said is holding Mubarak between his fingers the way one would hold a mouse from its tail.

Latuff stays abreast of the latest developments from the Egyptian revolution through the internet and social media. Many of his cartoons feature Arabic script which he learns and incorporates from his many Arabic speaking friends on Twitter. Surprisingly Latuff has not gotten much attention from his own country's press as the media have effectively ignored him due to his harsh criticism of their corrupt relationship to government. This means that Latuff is far more famous outside of his own country than inside it. On three occasions, Latuff was arrested for portraying police brutality in Brazil as part of his cartoons.

In speaking to Al-Ahram Online, Latuff declared that his "art is at their service, in order to promote their struggle and boost their morale." He says "My art is their art."

We have chosen 10 of Latuff's cartoons which captured the tone of the revolution during the 18 days of protests and shortly afterwards.

Khaled Said shown emerging from the map of Egypt to shout down Minister of Interior Habib Al-Adly.

Domino effect begins in Tunisia.

Mubarak here is shown unplugging the internet from Egypt, effectively
disconnecting it from the world, while himself being unplugged by Egypt.

This cartoon, Latuff depicts the Egyptian state television and radio building in Cairo is shown
 with a growing Pinocchio -style nose criticizing their campaign of misinformation during the revolution. 

Youth Democracy replaces Mubarak Statue