To the organizers and participants of 8th Tabriz International Cartoon Contest: Following your decision on cancelling my win at the 8th Tabriz International Contest "No War" in IRAN, I want to claim that I have never seen similar works to my work before the contest.
The oversight or maybe just mistake the jury had made choosing and rewarding my work was eventually a bitter punishment for me as for an artist. Nobody tried to contact me and explain the situation. Nobody was interested to hear my opinion.
I could easily understand the situation that my work is rejected during preliminary selection but it is really outrageous to do that after announcing the winners of the contest. I thought that decision of the jury is irrefutable and ultimate. I was wrong. Cancelling my win after giving me the prize is just like accusation of plagiarism.
I hope that you will be so kind to publish my letter on your website.
I'M WINNER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sincerely yours,
Wlodek Wasilewski
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My dear friend and collegue Wlodek Wasilewski,
As Jury members of 8th Tabriz International Cartoon Contest - "No War", first of all V.Kazanevski and I selected your cartoon work. Personally I think that your cartoon is the best one among all cartoon works of the Contest. But after the other variants of your work (that were drawn before) were placed in
http://www.donquichotte.at/_dq_/tr/bugun/ and,
viewtopic.php?t=5355&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30
we all changed our minds, and of course this work couldn’t be considered as a prize-winner. According to common opinion and decision of the Jury your work was called “similar”, but not “plagiarism”. It was written like that “Jury doesn’t think that the cartoon work of Wlodek Wasilewski is plagiarism, noting high artistic performance of the author”.
There were a lot of such cases in cartoon sphere and always will be. None of us are guaranteed for such cases. I hope you understand this unpleasant situation. It couldn’t be considered as a positive case for Jury members, organizers and for the Contest in whole.
The Head of the Jury Mr. M.Zlatkovski noted in his official decision: “On behalf of Jury members I apologize for not knowing ALL millions of cartoon works created by humanity”.
I place your letter and my answer on our website by your request. I think it would be objective.
Best wishes,
Bayram Hajizadeh
The member of jury of 8th Tabriz International Cartoon Contest.
The President of Azerbaijan Cartoonists’ Union