Iran Official’s Death Sought Over Cartoon

Clerics lashed out Friday at Iranian President Mohammad Khatami’s moderate policies and demanded that the culture minister be executed for his support of a political cartoon.

The clerics said a caricature portraying hard-liner Ayatollah Mohammed Yazdi as a crocodile--a symbol of treachery and deception in Islamic cultures--was encouraged by Culture Minister Ataollah Mohajerani and the Khatami administration’s relaxed stance toward the media.

“Death to Mohajerani,” about 4,000 clerics chanted during their protest in the holy city of Qom, about 80 miles south of Tehran. The minister, they shouted “must be executed.”

The caricature, published Sunday in the reformist Azad daily newspaper, also was criticized by about 100 protesters in the capital, Tehran, where Friday prayer leader Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati accused the paper of aiding Iran’s opponents.

“Blasphemous material and insults against clerics in newspapers are a service to enemies. I cannot believe that foreign hands are not involved in this issue,” he said.

Moderates denounced Yazdi after he alleged that a former CIA chief handed over hundreds of millions of dollars to some Iranian newspapers. He did not name them or say what the money was for.

Many newspapers have recently called for Yazdi’s prosecution for making the claims, veiled references targeting the credibility of reformist journalists. Mohajerani angered hard-line clerics by asking Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi and the Revolutionary Court to verify Yazdi’s accusations.

The clerics in Qom later joined 600 others who have been staging a sit-in at a mosque to protest the caricature. The clerics vowed to continue their protest until Mohajerani is dismissed.

The managing editor of Azad, Mohammad Reza Yazdanpanah, issued an apology Thursday, saying the caricature was “not an insult aimed at a particular individual or group, but even if there is an appearance of an insult, I sincerely apologize for it.”

But Ayatollah Javadi Amoli, leading the Friday prayers in Qom, said the “apology was not enough” and urged a change in government policies toward the media.