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MSNBC Home » World News » Middle East and North Africa

Iran becomes new focus of caricature protests

Danish Embassy in Tehran attacked; government cuts trade to Denmark

IMAGE: IRANIANS PROTEST AT EMBASSY
Vahid Salemi / AP
Iranians angry about the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad burn Danish and French flags in front of the Austrian Embassy on Monday in Tehran.
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Cartoon protests escalate
Feb. 6: Protests continue in the Islamic world over the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. NBC's Ned Colt reports.

Nightly News

MSNBC News Services
Updated: 6:44 p.m. ET Feb. 6, 2006

TEHRAN, Iran - Hundreds of angry protesters hurled stones and fire bombs at the Danish Embassy in the Iranian capital Monday to protest publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. Police used tear gas and surrounded the walled villa to hold back the crowd.

It was the second attack on a Western mission in Tehran on Monday. Earlier in the day, 200 student demonstrators threw stones at the Austrian Embassy, breaking windows and starting small fires. The mission was targeted because Austria holds the presidency of the European Union.

Thousands more people joined violent demonstrations across the world to protest publication of the caricatures of Muhammad, and the Bush administration appealed to Saudi Arabia to use its influence among Arabs to help ease tensions in the Middle East and Europe.

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In a meeting with local authors, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad condemned the cartoons and addressed the West: “Insulting the Prophet Muhammad would not promote your position,” the official Iranian news agency quoted him as saying.

Rushdie death warrant recalled
Also Monday, 200 members of Iran’s parliament issued a statement warning that those who published the cartoons should remember the case of Salman Rushdie — the British author against whom the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a death warrant for his novel “The Satanic Verses.”

Anger has spread across the Muslim world over 12 caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that were first published in Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten in September and recently reprinted in European media and elsewhere in what the newspapers say is a statement of free speech.

Islam prohibits any depiction of the Prophet Muhammad.

U.S. State Department reaction
The United States condemned the protests Monday, as administration officials continued to walk a fine line between supporting free speech and calling the cartoons offensive. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, “What we can do is to speak out very clearly in support of freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and urge understanding and tolerance — not violence.”

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“We certainly at this time urge governments to take any steps that they might to lower tensions concerning this issue,” McCormack said. He specifically said Saudi Arabia might be one. “Certainly the leaders of the Saudi government might be individuals who might fulfill that role,” he said. “There are others in the region who also might fulfill that role as well.”

Iran has withdrawn its ambassador to Denmark, and Iranian Commerce Minister Massoud Mirkazemi said on Monday that all trade with Denmark had been severed because of the cartoons, first published in September in a Danish newspaper.

“All trade ties with Denmark were cut,” he was quoted by the Iranian student news agency ISNA as telling a news conference.

Mirkazemi said from Tuesday Iran would stop any Danish goods from entering its customs’ areas. Iran imports some $280 million worth of goods a year from Denmark.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said he disapproves of the caricatures, but insisted he cannot apologize on behalf of his country's independent press.

In other incidents:

  • Somalia: A 14-year-old boy was shot dead when a protest of the cartoons turned violent in northeastern Somalia, residents and hospital sources said. They said police intervened after demonstrators started hurling stones at offices of international aid groups in the town of Bosaso, which lies in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland. “Those who threw stones were mostly children and under-age people, and police tried to stop the action,” a witness said. Hospital sources said at least nine others were wounded in the unrest.
  • Afghanistan: Outside Bagram, the main U.S. base, Afghan police fired on some 2,000 protesters as they tried to break into the heavily guarded facility, said Kabir Ahmed, the local government chief. It was the first time a protest over the issue has targeted the United States. Two demonstrators were killed and 13 people, including eight police, were wounded, he said. No U.S. troops were involved, the military said. Afghan police also fired on protesters in the central city of Mihtarlam after a man in the crowd shot at them and others threw stones and knives, Interior Ministry spokesman Dad Mohammed Rasa said. Two protesters were killed and three people were wounded, including two police, officials said.
  • Iraq: Several thousand Iraqis in the south rallied to demand severing all ties with countries in which the caricatures were published. Protesters called for the death of anyone who insults Muhammad and demanded withdrawal of 530-member Danish military contingent operating under British control.
  • India: The main city in Indian-controlled Kashmir came to a standstill as shops, businesses and schools shut down for a day to protest the caricatures. Dozens of protesters torched Danish flags, burned tires and shouted slogans in several parts of Srinagar. Protesters also hurled rocks at passing cars, but no one was reported hurt. In the capital New Delhi, riot police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse hundreds of students from Jamia University, who chanted slogans and burned a Danish flag.
  • Indonesia: Muslim protesters hurled rocks and broke windows at a Danish consulate witnesses said. About 100 people took part in the rally at the consulate in Surabaya, the country's second-largest city, witnesses said. Protests were also held in the capital, Jakarta, and at least two other cities.
  • Australia: Muslim leaders demanded an Australian newspaper apologize after it published one of the cartoons. The News Corp.-owned Courier-Mail, the biggest newspaper in the Queensland state capital of Brisbane, apparently became the first newspaper in Australia to publish one of the Danish caricatures on Saturday despite warnings from Muslim groups.
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