4 Killed, 330 Arrested In Cartoon Riot In Iran

A government-controlled newspaper in Iran published a cartoon of a cockroach speaking Azeri. Protests erupted and four demonstrators were killed. 330 people have been arrested in connection with the protests.


I find it incredible how crazy some people gets over some cartoons. Why are people getting killed because of cartoons? And this time religion was not even involved. So what if a cartoon cockroach spoke Azeri, what's the big deal? This reminds me of the cartoon riots from the danish Muhammed cartoons. Some people don't have any sense of humor whatsoever...

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The region in question, according to the article, is predominantly Azeri!

So, if you wanted them to be able to read something in the newspaper, oh, let's say a cartoon, wouldn't you want it to be written in a language they could read?

There probably wouldn't have been any riots if the "cartoon cockroach" had been depicted as speaking Russian, German, English or any other language for that matter, but then who in this region where these riots happened would have been able to read it?

But who knows?

Maybe all the other cartoon characters in this "Iranian government-controlled newspaper" spoke a different language and the cockroach was the only "cartoon character" to speak Azeri?

Or maybe this is the first time that the "Iranian government-controlled newspaper" had anything printed in it in Azeri!

Anyway, This is kind of ridiculous, people working themselves up into a frenzy, starting riots, and people dying because of the language a cartoon character spoke in a newspaper!

Who knows, maybe there's a law in Eastern Azerbaijan Province that it is against the law for a cartoon character depicting a cockroach to speak Azeri?

[edit on 6/7/2009 by Keyhole]