A political blogger in the US state of Ohio has been convicted for sending a state senator an obscene image of the cartoon ogre Shrek with his penis exposed. DJ Byrnes, who runs The Rooster, a Substack newsletter, sent messages to Jerry Cirino, a Republican who represents Ohio’s 18th district.
Cirino called the Shrek image “offensive” and “pornographic,” and characterised it as “the last straw” after an accumulation of criticism and vitriol he’d received while in office.
Byrnes’ arrest report refers to the image of Shrek as “fully nude with an exposed and erect humanlike penis engaged in an act of masturbation, according to a report in Axios . Cirino said the image crossed the line between political speech and harassment, prompting him to take legal action.
“This wasn’t a free speech issue; this was a harassment statute that I believed he was in violation of. There is a line to be drawn between normalized interaction on issues and policy and votes that allow for agreement and disagreement and lots of debate on a professional basis.
There is a line that shouldn’t be crossed,” he said.
