Smuggling Intellectual Freedom under Physical Constraint: The Enemy’s Body in Turkish Prison Cartoons

Through an examination of “prison cartoons,” a trend that flourished as a consequence
of the phenomenon of mass imprisonment that characterized Turkish military rule, this article
focuses on the multiple redefinitions of the concept of “enemy” that were elaborated in the aftermath of the 1980 coup in Turkey. Professional as well as amateur cartoonists who experienced
detention produced political caricatures and comic strips as witnesses of their jail life and sent them
to the weekly satirical magazine Gırgır, in which, notwithstanding repression and censorship, they
were regularly published. This article investigates the strategies by which the definition of and the
fight against the “enemy” were repeatedly negotiated in and through these cartoons.