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Iran to Cancel Contracts with Cartoon Countries
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered the cancellation of economic contracts with countries where the media have carried cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, the ISNA news agency reported. The report said the hardline president had ordered the creation of an official body to respond to the cartoons, saying the regime "must revise and cancel economic contracts with the countries that started this repulsive act and those that followed them." The presidential decree also condemned Saturday the "the insult by certain Western media of the prophet which shows the hatred towards Islam and Muslims of the Zionists who govern these countries and the absence of serious action by the leaders of these countries". The body looking into reprisals will be headed by Iran's commerce minister and include a deputy foreign minister, a deputy oil minister and a deputy industry minister, ISNA said. The cartoons, first published last September by the conservative Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, have since appeared in newspapers in countries including Norway, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Ireland, Austria, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Hungary. In a separate report, an influential state body -- the Council for Islamic Propaganda -- was quoted as calling for the expulsion of the Danish ambassador to Tehran as well as a boycott of Danish products. Iran's foreign ministry has already summoned the ambassadors of Denmark, Norway and EU presidency holder Austria to pass on the regime's complaints. It was the Islamic republic's late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini who in 1989 demanded Indian-born British author Salman Rushdie's execution over his novel the "Satanic Verses," deemed blasphemous and insulting to the Prophet Mohammed. Khomeini's successor as Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has yet to speak out on the issue. Posted by: lotp 2006-02-04 |
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