IRAN: The announcement yesterday that Iran's mass circulation daily Hamshahri will hold a competition for the 12 best cartoons about the Holocaust is meant to both retaliate for the publication in European papers of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad offensive to Muslims and test western tolerance of Muslim satirical interpretation of a similarly emotive issue.
Michael Jansen
Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has provoked western condemnation by characterising the Holocaust as a "myth" and convening a conference to examine whether it even happened.
So far no other Muslim leaders have taken steps so carefully calculated to offend western sensibilities. They have instead called for a calm response to the caricatures and recommended a boycott of Danish products since the row was sparked by original publication of the cartoons in a Danish paper.
But widespread resentment continues to erupt on the streets of Muslim countries and to be expressed in the media. International satellite and local television channels carry extensive coverage of protests and debate across the Muslim world.
One cartoon which appeared in the pan-Arab daily al-Quds al-Arabi is being circulated widely in Arabic and English.
It consists of three frames showing an editor crossing out a caricature of a black man as a racist and a drawing equating a swastika with a star of David as anti-Semitic, while he allows a collage of the Danish cartoons as "Freedom of Expression".
Writing in al-Quds al-Arabi, editor Abdel Bari Atwan, said: "We hoped that the protests which took place in most Arab and Muslim countries would be peaceful and would refrain from any sort of violence . . . Such actions are not justified and are regrettable."
Mahmud Rimawi stated in Jordan's main daily al-Rai: "No rational person wants legitimate anger to rebound on us."Journalists in Pakistan yesterday staged a march in Islamabad to demand the expulsion of EU ambassadors and the boycott of EU exports.
There is serious concern that popular protest is being exploited by extremist factions to sow communal discord. Sunday's riot in Beirut is characterised by Nabil Abu-Mansif in al-Nahar as "an advanced attempt to blow up Lebanon and set it on fire" by pitting Muslims against Christians.
In Kashmir's capital Srinagar a rally turned into an anti-Indian riot, while in Afghanistan the US airbase at Bagram and Norwegian Nato peacekeepers were attacked.