Posted on 05/23/2006 9:00:17 AM PDT by Wiz
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Members of Iran's Azeri minority hurled stones in violent protests on Monday, enraged by a newspaper cartoon they said insulted them, a semi-official news agency and a witness said.
The ILNA labor news agency said thousands protested in the northwestern city of Tabriz and that police used teargas to try to disperse the crowd. The exact number of demonstrators could not be confirmed.
A resident said furious protesters threw stones at banks and smashed windows.
"They are angry because ... we (Azeris) are insulted by a cartoon," Soraya, a 40-year-old mother, told Reuters by telephone from Tabriz.
The cartoon, which appeared in Friday's edition of the official Iran newspaper, showed a boy repeating the Persian word for cockroach in different ways, while a cockroach in front of the boy asked "What?" in Azeri.
The Azeris of northwestern Iran speak a language related to Turkish. Although Azeris have many luminaries among Iran's commercial elite, Iran's majority Persians mock them as stupid in their jokes.
The conservative Siyasat-e Rouz daily on Sunday said a crowd of Azeris had set fire to Iran's local office in the city of Orumiyeh, where Azeris make up the majority of the population. They account for about 25 percent of the overall population.
(Excerpt) Read more at iranfocus.com ...
ping
Methinks these Azeris are in need of visit from SOCOM regarding our mutual distaste of the mullahs. 25% of the population is an interesting number.
25% is a very interesting number. Enough, to be sure.
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