Pedro X. Molina, who came to Ithaca as a guest of Ithaca City of Asylum (ICOA) in 2018 and has lived in the area ever since, will receive the Vaclav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent at a ceremony in Oslo, Norway, on Wednesday, June 14. 

The prize, established in 2012 by the Human Rights Foundation, honors “those who unmask the lie of dictatorship through art.” It is named for the late Czech poet, playwright, and philosopher who led his country’s successful revolt against Soviet rule in the 1970s and 80s. 

Molina is a popular political cartoonist in his native Nicaragua and an energetic critic of the dictatorship there. He fled with his family on Christmas Day in 2018 after the offices of Confidencial, the online news outlet where he published his cartoons, were ransacked and occupied during a crackdown on dissent. 

Working with the International Cities of Refuge Network, ICOA arranged for his travel to Ithaca and his positions as an international writer in residence at Ithaca College and an Artist Protection Fund fellow in residence at the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program at Cornell. ICOA also provided Molina and his family with financial, legal, logistical, and social support. 

While living in Ithaca, Molina has continued to send a daily cartoon to Confidencial and frequently publishes in US media. Last year, his wife took a position as a teacher in the Ithaca city schools and the family decided to put down roots in the community. 

“Pedro is a courageous advocate for human rights and free expression, and it is wonderful to know that his voice carries to his home country and beyond,” said ICOA board chair Gail Holst-Warhaft. “He is also a fine human being, and we’re thrilled that he and his family have decided to settle here in Ithaca.”

Among Molina’s many honors is a 2021 Gabo Prize for Excellence, one of the most prestigious journalism awards in Latin America. He also won a 2019 Maria Moors Cabot Award from Columbia Journalism School for “career excellence and coverage of the Western Hemisphere that furthers inter-American understanding.”

The Cabot Award committee called him “one of Nicaragua’s sharpest observers” and wrote that “Molina uses his pen and wit to take aim not only at the repressive government of President Daniel Ortega, but also at human rights abuses throughout the Americas and the world.”

In 2018, he won the Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award from Cartoonists Rights Network International and an Excellence in Journalism award from the Inter American Press Association.