Several dozen Iranians gathered on Sunday January 8 in front of the French embassy in Tehran where they burned French flags to protest against the cartoons of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic published in the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. Gathered in central Tehran, the demonstrators, mostly students of Shiite seminaries and women in chadors, held Iranian flags, portraits of Khamenei and signs denouncing the satirical newspaper, AFP journalists noted. “Oh France, abandon your hostility!“, and “Shame on France“, chanted the demonstrators who burned French flags.
Charlie Hebdo published on Wednesday January 4 a series of cartoons featuring the highest religious and political figure of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran denounced the cartoonsinsulting and indecentpublished in a special edition on the occasion of the anniversary of the murderous attack of 2015 against the premises of Charlie Hebdo in Paris. The Iranian authorities had warned France that they would take retaliatory measures.
Iranian reprisals
Tehran thus announced the closure of the French Research Institute in Iran (IFRI), the oldest and most important French research center in the country, affiliated to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The IFRI, located in the center of the Iranian capital, had been closed for many years. It had reopened under the chairmanship of the moderate Hassan Rouhani (2013-2021) as a sign of the warming of bilateral relations.
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This Sunday, in front of the French Embassy, Karim Heydar pour, a 17-year-old seminary student, told AFP that he had participated in the rally to “support the Revolution and the Supreme Leader“. “We must give (opponents of the Islamic Republic) an answer so that they do not think that we do not support our Revolution“, he said.
A similar gathering took place earlier in Qom, a Shiite holy city nearly 150 km south of Tehran, according to state television footage. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said on Sunday that freedom of expression should not be used as a pretext for “insult» religious personalities. He called on Paris to “respect the fundamental principles of international relationsand not to interfere in Iran’s internal affairs.
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Charlie Hebdo said it published the cartoons in support of the Iranian people during the protests sparked by the September 16 death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman who died after being arrested by vice police.