Iran shuts French Institute amid row over Charlie Hebdo cartoons

Iran says it will review France’s cultural activities in the country and close down a French research institute in response to a French satirical magazine’s caricatures of the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Anadolu News Agency reports.

In a statement on Thursday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said it strongly condemns the “insulting action” of Charlie Hebdo against the country’s “religious sanctities”, “political and religious authority” as well as the “symbols of sovereignty and national values ​​of Iranians”.

‌The French satirical magazine, on Wednesday, published a series of caricatures depicting Iran’s supreme leader, which Iranian authorities deemed “offensive”.

The drawings were chosen from a worldwide competition announced by Charlie Hebdo last month when it called on cartoonists to send the “funniest and meanest caricatures” of Iran’s top political and religious authority.

The competition came amid months-long protests in Iran sparked by the death of a 22-year-old Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, while in police custody in mid-September.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry said: “The publication of caricatures was another sign of failure of Zionism in using media to promote anti-Islamism,” and criticised the “inaction” of French authorities “in dealing with manifestations of anti-Islamism and racist hatred in French publications.”

It also announced that Tehran will “review” the cultural activities of France in the country and shut down the French Institute for Research in Iran (Institut Francais de Recherche en Iran), which operates under the French Embassy in Tehran, as the “first step”.

On Wednesday, Iran’s Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, said France chose “the wrong path” in permitting the publication of “insulting” cartoons of Khamenei in the weekly satirical magazine.

“The insulting and indecent act of a French publication in publishing cartoons against the religious and political authority will not go without a decisive and effective response,” the top Iranian diplomat tweeted.

“We will not allow the French government to go beyond all bounds,” he added, saying Paris had “chosen the wrong path.”

Hours after the tweet, the French Ambassador in Tehran was summoned by the Foreign Ministry over the publication of caricatures.

Foreign Ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanaani, in a statement said the Ambassador was told that Tehran does not accept “any insults to its sanctities” as well as “religious, national values”, and that Tehran “reserves the right to give a “proportionate response”.

READ: Iran summons France envoy over ‘insulting’ cartoons