Iran denies inflaming prophet cartoons violence

The Iranian government has hit back at an accusation by US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice that it has inflamed violent protests over caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Mohammad and demanded an apology.

Rice, meanwhile, said Iran and Syria should be urging citizens to remain calm - not encouraging violence such as last week’s attacks on Western diplomatic missions in Tehran, Damascus and Beirut, Lebanon’s capital. Nearly a dozen people were also killed in protests in Afghanistan.

“If people continue to incite it, it could spin out of control,” she said yesterday on ABC’s This Week as anger mounted over the cartoons of Islam’s most revered figure that first appeared in a Danish newspaper four months ago.

The drawings – including one that depicts the prophet wearing a turban shaped like a bomb – have been reprinted in several publications in Europe, the US and elsewhere in what publishers say is a show of solidarity for freedom of expression.

The images offended many Muslims as Islam widely holds that representations of the prophet are banned for fear they could lead to idolatry.

But some suggest the genuine anger displayed by crowds across the Muslim world has been exploited or intensified by some Muslim countries in the region to settle scores with Western powers.

Rice said on Wednesday: “Iran and Syria have gone out of their way to inflame sentiments and to use this to their own purposes. And the world ought to call them on it”.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said yesterday that an apology from Rice and Denmark could help.

“What happened was a natural reaction,” Asefi said, adding that “an apology could alleviate the tension”.

He spoke as one of Iran’s largest newspapers opened a contest today seeking caricatures of the Holocaust. Hamshahri newspaper said it wanted to test whether the West extended its principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide as it did to the cartoons of Islam’s prophet.

When asked by ABC to give evidence that Iran and Syria had incited the demonstrations, Rice pointed to the fact that little happened 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.

United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan condemned the drawings as “insensitive and rather offensive”, but called for dialogue.

“Right now there’s megaphone diplomacy,” Annan told Denmark’s national broadcaster DR. “And I think we should turn off the megaphones and begin to talk quietly to each other.”

Protests continued yesterday as 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 south-east Turkey.

About 25 Muslim graves were vandalised at a cemetery in western Denmark, police said yesterday. The prime minister quickly condemned the attack. Graffiti insulting the Prophet Mohammad – including slogans equating him with a pig, an animal Muslims regard as unclean – were also found scrawled on a West Bank mosque.

Israeli soldiers erased the slogans, but they still touched off a protest in which three Palestinians were shot by soldiers. An Israeli woman was also slightly injured by stones thrown at her car.

The Iranian foreign minister said yesterday that Denmark could have resolved the problem by apologising immediately for the caricatures. He also repeated claims by Iran’s hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the drawings were part of an Israeli conspiracy.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he could not apologise 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 on CNN’s Late Edition.

“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 added.

Denmark has withdrawn embassy staff from Iran, Syria and Indonesia and warned Danes to leave Indonesia, saying they faced a “significant and imminent danger” from an extremist group.