Doğan Güzel is from Diyarbakır, a city in southeastern Turkey that is the unofficial capital of the region of Turkish Kurdistan.

A court ruled that Özgür Gündem was a "mouthpiece" of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and thus publishing “a terrorist organization’s propaganda."

Police raided the offices of Özgür Gündem, seizing computers, beating journalists, and yelling "Armenians, Jews, sons of Lenin; you are going to find out about the strength of the Turkish state."

A photograph of Güzel in police custody with his shirt nearly torn off became a symbol for those protesting attacks on the Turkish press.

[1][2][8][9][10][11][12] In addition to his work as a newspaper cartoonist, Güzel contributed to the magazine Meme[6] and illustrated the 1998 historical novel Ataların Karşılaşması by Cemal Resid Ahmed.