Kais al-Hilali

Kais al-Hilali (1979 – 20 March 2011) was a Libyan political cartoonist shot and killed on 20 March 2011 during the Libyan Civil War minutes after painting one of the political street murals for which he was locally famous. According to witnesses, he had just drawn a caricature of Muammar Gaddafi on a wall in Benghazi when the bullet hit.

When the uprising began, al-Hilali and his friends started drawing caricatures on paper and distributing them around the city for people to show at demonstrations or hang on walls.

Cartoonist revolutionary

Kais was among demonstrators who stormed the city's Khattiba barracks on 20 February, but his contribution was different from that of those armed with rocks and petrol bombs. Instead of fighting, he painted a large cartoon across the Khattiba walls depicting Colonel Gaddafi beside the rebels' two-fingered victory salute.

Kais's death was reported by journalists in many of the world's leading television stations and newspapers. However, it was the reaction and response from his fellow cartoonists in the same organisations that paid the ultimate tribute to Kais. At the time of his death his anti Gaddafi murals were only known to the residents of Benghazi. To mark the brutal nature of this death leading cartoonists from newspapers around the globe published cartoons in tribute to him and in protest at his murder, many portraying Colonel Gaddafi as being responsible for his death.

The Australian Newspaper commented 'The young rebel artist lived to fight with his brushes and paints, eschewing Libya's weapons and bloodshed in favour of the satirical anti-Gaddafi graffiti and caricatures that he daubed across Benghazi's walls.

Irish newspaper publisher Des Grant stated that a street in Benghazi should be named after Kais he repeated the comments on the artist's Facebook page.