There was an interesting new post at the Cartoonist Rights Network International:

Last we week we wrote about Badiucao’s inability to exhibit his work internationally and the subsequent challenges faced while attempting to make a film in several different countries, once again playing cat and mouse with the Chinese authorities.

Badiucao”, the persona, has been maintained during the ten years the artist has been resident in Australia. However it became clear that despite the enormous care taken by Badiucao, his colleagues and creative partners around the world his security was compromised sometime in 2018. Thereafter he had to prioritise the safety of himself and his family, cancelling his major exhibition of work in Hong Kong and taking an extended break from social media.

However he was not content to grant the authoritarians in his home nation unlimited leverage. Knowing that they have his identity and that it remains a tool with which to exert control only as long as the information is hidden from the wider world, Badiucao has taken the bold and courageous step to unmask, the first stage of discarding his anonymity. That he should do so on the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre makes the act all the more poignant and resonant.

See full story here.