Iran rejects accusations it inflamed violence over prophet caricatures
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at 15:31 on February 12, 2006, EST.
By NASSER KARIMI
An injured Palestinian is helped after he was wounded by a live bullet in the legs during clashes with Israeli troops in the village of Azun, near the West Bank town of Qalqilya Sunday. (AP/Nasser Ishtayeh)
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran on Sunday rejected U.S. and Danish accusations that it has inflamed and encouraged violent protests over caricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammad and demanded an apology, saying it could reduce growing tension. Iran was responding to comments by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who said Wednesday: "Iran and Syria have gone out of their way to inflame sentiments and to use this to their own purposes."
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi singled out Rice's comments and also said Denmark should apologize to help calm the furor that has broken out over the images that first appeared in a Danish newspaper four months ago.
"What happened was a natural reaction. Rice and Danish officials should apologize. Such comments could worsen the situation and an apology could alleviate the tension," Asefi said.
He spoke a day before one of Iran's largest newspapers was to open a contest seeking caricatures of the Holocaust. Hamshahri newspaper said it wanted to test whether the West extends its principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide as it did to the caricatures of Islam's prophet, deemed unacceptable in Islam.
Islam widely holds that representations of the prophet are banned for fear they could lead to idolatry.
Flemming Rose, the Danish editor behind the publication of the caricatures, had said he would consider running the Holocaust drawings in Jyllands-Posten but was later overruled by his editor.
While many of the protests over the Muhammad caricatures have been peaceful, Danish and other European diplomatic missions were attacked by demonstrators last week in Syria, Lebanon and Iran. Nearly a dozen people also were killed in protests in Afghanistan.
On Sunday, Rice was asked on ABC television to give evidence that Iran and Syria had incited the demonstrations, and she pointed to the fact that little happens in the two countries without government permission.
"I can say that the Syrians tightly control their society and the Iranians even more tightly. It is well known that Iran and Syria bring protesters into the streets when they wish, to make a point," she said Sunday.
The drawings - including one that depicts the prophet wearing a turban shaped like a bomb - have been reprinted in several publications in Europe, the United States and elsewhere in what publishers say is a show of solidarity for freedom of expression.
Protests continued Sunday. Ultra-nationalist Turks, chanting "vengeance," pelted the French consulate in Istanbul with eggs as about 2,500 pro-Islamic demonstrators shouted "Down with America, Israel and Denmark." At least 30,000 protesters denounced publication of the drawings in a peaceful rally in southeast Turkey.
Graffiti insulting the Prophet Muhammad - including offensive slogans equating Islam's founder with a pig, an animal Muslims regard to be unclean - also were found scrawled on a West Bank mosque, touching off a protest in which three Palestinians were shot by Israeli soldiers and an Israeli woman was slightly injured by stones thrown at her car.
The Iranian foreign minister told reporters Sunday that Denmark could have resolved the problem had it apologized immediately for the caricatures. He also repeated claims by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the drawings were part of an Israeli conspiracy.
Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen repeatedly has said he cannot apologize for the actions of a free press.
"Neither the government, nor the Danish people can be held responsible for what is published in a free and independent newspaper," he said Sunday on CNN's Late Edition.
He also said he agreed with Rice.
"I think she has a point. It's obvious to me that certain countries take advantage of this situation to distract attention from their own problems with the international community, including Syria and Iran," he said.
Denmark has withdrawn embassy staff from Iran, Syria and Indonesia. It also warned Danes to leave Indonesia, saying they faced a "significant and imminent danger" from an extremist group.
Protests over the cartoons have been relatively small across Indonesia, although hardliners last week briefly stormed the lobby of the high-rise building housing the Danish Embassy in Jakarta and threw stones at the Scandinavian country's consulate in Surabaya city.
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi told German newspaper Neuen Ruhr/Neuen Rhein Zeitung that the "infidels" who have published the caricatures are guilty of spreading hate, according to an early release of the article.
In other developments:
-Algerian editors Kamel Bousaad and Berkane Bouderbala have been taken into police custody for publishing the caricatures of the prophet, the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said Sunday.
-A little-known far-right group in Finland posted the Muhammad drawings on its Web site Sunday, saying it was protesting that a similar site was closed in Sweden after soliciting new cartoons of the prophet.
-The Indian government expressed its "deep concern" about the growing controversy in an official statement late Saturday, urging greater sensitivity to the beliefs of others.
See Christian Right-Wing Hate groups are the ones publishing these cartoons. To push hate against a people.
Now, even though I think of putting out Holocaust cartoons is dispictable because of what took place, and it will hurt and inflame the tensions around the world, it will be interesting to see what Western Leaders have to say, what is their limits to Free Speech.