Tehran (ANTARA News) – Iran summoned Denmark’s ambassador to protest the reprinting on Wednesday of a cartoon of Prophet Mohammed that caused bloody riots in the Islamic world two years ago, the state run IRNA news agency reported.
The cartoon, one of a series of 12 cartoons first published in September 2005 that sparked protests in early 2006, was reprinted in at least 17 Danish newspapers a day after Danish police foiled a murder plot against the cartoonist.
“The foreign ministry summoned the Danish ambassador following the repetition of the insults to the Prophet and in order to voice an official protest of the reprinting of the cartoon in the Danish press,” IRNA quoted a foreign ministry statement as saying.
“The foreign ministry… strongly condemned this and urged a serious confrontation against such insults and a prevention of any repetition,” it added.
Hundreds of Iranian demonstrators twice in February 2006 attacked the Danish embassy, causing serious damage by throwing Molotov cocktails and also briefly storming the building in protest at the cartoons.
In October 2006, demonstrators angered over a satirical video of the Prophet Mohammed aired on Danish television also hurled firebombs and rocks at Denmark’s embassy.