Nikahang Kowsar

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Nikahang Kowsar (Persian: نیک‌آهنگ کوثر , born 1969) is an Iranian cartoonist, journalist, and blogger, currently living in Toronto, Canada.

Nikahang Kowsar was arrested and spent seven days in prison for his depiction of "Professor Crocodile", a reptilian academic who was shown strangling a journalist with his tail. The cartoon has been interpreted as a reference to Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, an Iranian cleric.

After his arrest he applied for refugee status in Canada which was accepted in 2002 and he's lived in Toronto ever since.

While Kowsar lives in Toronto, because of pressures from the Iranian Judiciary and revolutionary guards because of his cartoons, one of which had resulted in a term in prison, his wife and daughter live in Iran. Apparently, Kowsar had a hard time finding a job related to his previous expertise, resulting in him working for fifteen months in a dry cleaning plant. He is now working for a Canadian News Agency. He also has been free-lancing and his cartoons have been recently published by New York Times, Washington Post, The Globe and Mail, Maclean's, and The Guardian. Kowsar is a member of the New York Times Syndicate.

Nikahang is a member of the board of directors of Cartoonists Rights Network International. Kowsar is also a member of the Associacion of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists(ACEC) and Journalists in Exile(JEX). CBC made a documentary based on his life and his involvement in the Blogger movement.

Kowsar was also a reformist candidate for the second term of city council of Tehran, an election won by the conservative candidates of Abadgaran.

He's now working for rooz online newspaper which is funded by a dutch foundation and is focused on promoting free speech and human rights in iran.