Iran on Wednesday warned France of the consequences of a satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo published cartoons depicting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which Tehran is seen as insulting.
The weekly published dozens of cartoons ridiculing the Islamic republic’s top religious and political figure as part of a contest it launched in December in support of Iran’s three-month-old protest movement.
“The offensive and indecent act of a French publication in publishing cartoons against religious and political authority will not go without an effective and decisive response,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian tweeted.
“We will not allow the French government to go beyond its limits. They have decidedly chosen the wrong path,” he added, without specifying the consequences.
Later Wednesday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry announced that it had summoned French Ambassador Nicolas Roche.
“France has no right to insult the sanctity of other Muslim countries and nations under the pretext of freedom of expression,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said.
“Iran awaits explanations and compensatory measures from the French government to condemn the unacceptable behavior of the French publication,” he added.
Seen by his supporters as a champion of free speech and by critics as unnecessarily provocative, by Charlie Hebdo the style is controversial, even in France.
But the country was united in pain when in January 2015 it was the target of a deadly attack by Islamist gunmen who claimed to be avenging the magazine’s decision to publish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
“Not the Last Word”
The latest controversy issue contained a variety of sexual images depicting Khamenei and other clerics. Other cartoons highlighted the authorities’ use of the death penalty as a tactic to suppress protests.
“It was a way to show our support for Iranian men and women who risk their lives to defend their freedom against the theocracy that has oppressed them since 1979,” he added. Charlie Hebdo Director Laurent Sourisseau, known as Riss, wrote in an editorial.
All the cartoons published “have the merit of challenging the authority claimed by the supposed supreme leader, as well as the cohort of his servants and other henchmen”, he added.
Nathalie Loiseau, a French member of the European Parliament and a former minister loyal to President Emmanuel Macron, called Iran’s response “an attempt at interference and a threat” to Charlie Hebdo.
“Let it be perfectly clear: the repressive and theocratic regime in Tehran has nothing to teach France,” she said.
Khamenei, the successor to revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, is appointed for life. Beyond day-to-day politics, criticism of him is banned in Iran.
Khomeini in 1989 issued a famous religious edict, or fatwa, ordering Muslims to kill British author Salman Rushdie for what he considered Rushdie’s blasphemous nature. satanic verses.
Many activists blamed Iran last year when the writer was stabbed at an event in New York, but Tehran has denied any connection.
The Iranian regime has been rocked by three months of protests sparked by the September 16 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian Kurd who was arrested for allegedly breaking the country’s strict dress code for women.
He responded with a crackdown that the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights said killed at least 476 people during protests, which Iranian officials generally describe as “riots”.
Charlie Hebdo The cartoons were published in a special edition to mark the anniversary of the deadly attack on his Paris office, which left 12 dead, including some of his best-known cartoonists.
“Eight years later, religious intolerance has not said its last word,” said its director. “He continues his work in defiance of international protests and respect for the most basic human rights.”
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