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www.twincities.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/13851651.htm?source=rss&channel=miamiherald_worldISLAMWest must be punished, Iran says Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech that 'the people of the United States and Europe should pay a heavy price' for publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad. BY NASSER KARIMIAssociated Press
TEHRAN, Iran - The Iranian president, marking the 27th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, told tens of thousands of his countrymen Saturday that the United States and Europe should pay a heavy price for publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad, saying the West had become a tool of ``Zionism.''Denmark, where the cartoons first were published last fall, decided to temporarily pull its envoys from Tehran, Syria and Indonesia, where buildings housing Copenhagen's diplomatic missions have come under attacks from angry Muslim demonstrators.
And a Saudi Arabian newspaper reprinted the Friday sermon of the country's top cleric who said it was too late for apologies and those responsible for the drawings should be put on trial and punished.Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose country is deeply at odds with much of the international community over its disputed nuclear program, has promoted an anti-Israeli campaign that began last fall when he said the Holocaust was a ''myth'' and that Israel should be ``wiped off the map.''Ahmadinejad has issued his anti-Israel remarks in conjunction with the growing nuclear crisis, in which the United States and some allies claim Iran's civilian nuclear activities are a cover for making an atomic weapon. Iran says it wants reactors to generate electricity.
In recent days, demonstrators in the tightly controlled country attacked the Danish, French and Austrian embassies with firebombs and hit the British mission with rocks.
In Saturday's speech the hard-line leader linked his public rage with Israel and the cartoons.
''I ask everybody in the world not to let a group of Zionists who failed in Palestine to insult the prophet,'' Ahmadinejad said, referring to the recent Hamas victory in Palestinian elections.''Now in the West insulting the prophet is allowed, but questioning the Holocaust is considered a crime,'' he said. ''We ask, why do you insult the prophet? The response is that it is a matter of freedom, while in fact they [who insult the founder of Islam] are hostages of the Zionists. And the people of the U.S. and Europe should pay a heavy price for becoming hostages to Zionists,'' he declared.Islam, especially the larger Sunni sect, widely holds that representations of the prophet are banned for fear they could lead to idolatry.
Iran, a predominantly Shiite Muslim country, has seized on the caricatures as a means of rallying its people behind a government increasingly under fire from the West. Ironically, the Shiite sect does not impose a blanket ban of representations of the prophet, and some Muslims in Iran's provincial towns and villages, even carry drawings said to be of the prophet.
But Tehran said the newspaper caricatures were insulting.
One of the drawings depicted the prophet wearing a turban shaped like a bombing with a burning fuse.
Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik, whose country holds the European Union's rotating presidency, responded on behalf of the 25-nation trading bloc, saying Ahmadinejad's remarks were shocking and should not be silently accepted.
''These remarks stand in complete contradiction to the efforts of numerous political and religious leaders who after the events of the past few days are campaigning for a dialogue between cultures that is marked by mutual respect,'' Plassnik added.