PARIS: Iran on Thursday announced the closure of a Tehran-based French research institute in protest against cartoons of the Islamic republic’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, published by French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.

The magazine printed the caricatures in support of months of protests in Iran as part of a special edition to mark the anniversary of the deadly 2015 attack on its Paris office which left 12 people dead, including some of its best known cartoonists.

“The ministry is ending the activities of the French Institute for Research in Iran as a first step,” the Iranian foreign ministry said in a statement, a day after Tehran had warned Paris of consequences.

The French government must hold responsible “the authors of such hatred”, it added, also calling for “a serious fight against anti-Islamism and Islamophobia” in France.

Now operating under police protection, Charlie Hebdo remains as irreverent as ever

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian tweeted in response that “the insulting and indecent act of a French publication in publishing cartoons against the religious and political authority will not go without an effective and decisive response”.

Iran’s foreign ministry also summoned French ambassador Nicolas Roche on Wednesday.

“France has no right to insult the sanctities of other Muslim countries and nations under the pretext of freedom of expression,” foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said.

IFRI, affiliated with the French foreign ministry, is a historical and archeological institute founded in 1983 after the merger of the French Archaeological Delegation in Iran and the French Institute of Iranology in Tehran.

Located in the centre of Tehran, it had been closed for many years but was reopened under the 2013-2021 presidency of the moderate president Hassan Rouhani as a sign of warming bilateral relations.

Meanwhile, with the publication of the cartoons, the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is demonstrating that it has lost none of its appetite for provocation or its ability to stir up diplomatic problems abroad.

The irreverent, and militantly atheist publication, operates today with round-the-clock police protection and from a secret location, eight years after it was attacked following the publication of blasphemous cartoons.

Most controversially of all, it has repeatedly published caricatures of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him).

Twelve people died in that assault, including some of its most famous cartoonists, but it continues to caricature and mock politicians and public figures in a style that is deliberately vulgar and disrespectful.

The murders sparked a global outpouring of solidarity with France and freedom of speech under the “I am Charlie” slogan, but the publication also makes many people queasy, including in France.

Critics see it as being needlessly provocative towards Muslims and even Islamophobic, even though it has frequently offended other religious groups, including Catholics with its crude depictions of the pope.

Anti-France demonstrations and calls to boycott French goods swept through many Muslim-majority countries in 2020 after Macron defended the right of cartoonists to be blasphemous.

In October of that year, a French school teacher was beheaded for showing cartoons of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) in his class as part of a discussion about freedom of speech.

Published in Dawn, january 6th, 2023