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Hardliners hold demos over ''insult'' to Khomeini
A crisis over a decades-old US caricature deemed insulting to Iran's late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini deepened Sunday, as Islamic hardliners shut religious schools in protest and thousands of their supporters staged demonstrations.No skin off my fore. Let 'em riot in the streets... Across the country, religious schools heeded calls from the powerful Association of Theology Teachers and the Supreme Council of Theology Schools and went on strike to protest against the caricature published in a pro-reform daily. Ahah! They want to kill some Medes and Persians! State television showed images of a demonstration in the religious southern city of Qom, a bastion of "Grab yer turbans and get out there and shriek!" On Wednesday, the Hayate No daily re-printed a caricature published in US papers in 1937 showing former US president Franklin D. Roosevelt pressing his thumb to the head of a US Supreme Court justice. However, hardliners felt the justice â shown as an elderly bearded man dressed in a long black robe â bore a striking resemblance to the revered late leader of the 1979 Islamic revolution and have shut it down. You're spittin' me! That's it? It was published 42 years prior to the Iranian revolution, and their undies bunch? In Qom, dozens of protestors wore white shrouds splattered with red paint and carried black flags as if in mourning. They demanded the courts punish Hayate No's editors and "take action against all those who insult the values of Islam and the revolution." "Kill them! Kill them all! Droooool! "Death to journalists in the pay of foreigners," they chanted, as well as: "Khatami, this is the last warning." Get the idea now? Nobody gives a short methane emission about the picture. And guess what else? Ironically, Hayate No is managed by Hadi Khamenei, a leading reformist MP on the other side of the political spectrum from his brother, Iran's current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. "Hey, bro! How's things on that side of the fence?" He told the parliament on Sunday he had no intention of insulting the founder of the Islamic republic and his former friend. He said that he was the "target" of a campaign and reaffirmed his devotion and veneration for Khomeini, and added in an emotional voice that he regretted having escaped the Shah's prisons to "be a witness to this deplorable campaign." What kind of stuff did you think was going to happen when you helped impose a theocracy, Hadi? FOLLOWUP: Iranian hard-liners shut down two leading reformist papers Saturday, including one run by the brother of Iran's supreme leader, for publishing a 65-year-old cartoon they said insulted the late founder of the country's Islamic republic. The Special Clergy Court ordered the Farsi-language Hayat-e-Nou closed and summoned editor Hadi Khamenei to face unspecified charges. The cartoon, published Wednesday, showed the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini being crushed by a hand. It did not. (And a large "thhhhpppp!" to the AP for that!) Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2003-01-12 |
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