Should a Drawn Image Ever be Punishable by Law?

Art is a subjective medium. What one piece of artwork means to one person could be completely different to what it means to another. Because of this deciding whether or not someone should be punished for their art is difficult. Depending on your point of view, your experiences, your prejudices, etc, you will read images differently. Whether someone should be arrested and punished by law is related to the standpoints of the majority of people who consume the artwork.

In some cases, the artwork included in some magazines and newspapers has caused violent outbursts from those that it offended. A recent example of this is the terror attacks on the headquarters of the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo. In this case the magazine published numerous cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in a satirical way which instigated a violent response from members of the Islamic community. Depicting Muhammad in such a way is forbidden in the religion of Islam and the attackers were thought to be enacting some sort of vengeance against the magazine for insulting their religion. In 2011 the headquarters were firebombed to send a message to the Charlie Hebdo staff. However, the magazine continued to depict the prophet and thus in 2015, armed gunman stormed the building and murdered 12 staff members. Although the murders of the staff should not be defended, it should be considered that the magazine editors knew that they were insulting the religion and continued to do so regardless of the threats received from the Islamic extremists. Which begs the question. Given that it was the artwork that instigated the attacks, should the writers, editors, or cartoonists have been held accountable for the deaths that occurred? Should they have been punished for directly, and indirectly insulting the religion?

There are numerous cases when artists have been punished and served jail sentences for their work. A recent example of this is in 2014 when the Swedish artist Dan Parks was arrested for displaying artwork that was considered to be strongly racist in an art gallery in Malmo, Sweden. Parks pieces were done in collage, some of which contained images of people that he knew. One of the pieces depicted three black men with nooses round their necks and others contained slander against Roma community leaders. Park was sentenced to 6 months in prison for inciting hatred against an ethnic group and defamation. The court also ordered that the 9 pieces he created be destroyed. Park had been arrested in 2011 for similar offences when he created a collage piece depicting an Afro-Swede student activist naked in chains with text saying “Our Negro Slave Has Run Away”. Obviously this didn’t go down well with people as not only was the artwork explicitly racist but Park targeted a specific person whom he disliked. Park was fined for his work and ordered to pay for damages. Similar to the Charlie Hebdo case, the artwork created by Park was being made to target a specific group of people and although he knew that creating this art would upset them greatly, he still went ahead and produced it. Unlike the Charlie Hebdo case though, Park was sentenced to prison time for his work. Park claimed however that his work was purely satirical and that he had the right to speak his mind about social events. Was it right for him to receive a prison sentence for creating this work?

It’s hard to decide what artwork does and doesn’t break the law as it is relative to the person who views it. I personally thing that if your work was specifically created to target, incriminate or ridicule another person then it should be up to the two people to come to terms with the outcome if the person targeted takes offence. However, if an entire ethnic group or religion is targeted or shamed then I think the artwork should be pulled out of whatever exhibition or publication it is in and either be destroyed or filed away somewhere so that it doesn’t provoke any actions that could cause harm to the creator or anyone who supports the work as well as the people that the work targets. It also depends on the severity of the artwork. For example, if it was intended as a social commentary on the public perception of certain issues and a few people took offence then it’s hard to punish the creator if all they wanted to do was draw attention to a societal issue. If the work was meant as a criticism of certain groups, either ethnic, religious or even social, then I think it has to be considered that actions be taken to ensure that the scenario doesn’t take place again, and especially that no harm comes to either those targeted or the creators of the artwork.