By BRIAN MURPHY, Associated Press Writer

TEHRAN, Iran - Protesters in bloodstained shrouds clog streets in Iran's holy city. A popular newspaper is closed and key staff arrested.

The brother of Iran's supreme leader chokes back tears in parliament.

Call it the cartoon crisis.

A torrent of outrage from Muslim hard-liners increased Sunday over a most unexpected provocation: a 66-year-old American political cartoon about a Depression era power struggle.

The drawing, published last week in the now-closed Hayat-e-Nou newspaper, showed a Supreme Court justice being humbled under a giant thumb representing then President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Iranian conservatives saw something closer to home.

They felt the white-bearded judge in the cartoon resembled the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. It was considered a stinging insult to his memory.

But the domino-style fallout cuts far deeper than just one old sketch. It displays the wildly unpredictable nature of Iranian politics at a time when conservatives feel threatened from all sides.

"This is just an excuse to make a show of force ... and create tension," said a pro-reform lawmaker, Mohammad Naimipour. "This is not natural."

Hard-liners were equally emphatic.

"We announce our disgust and hatred toward this abominable move ... our nation is united to expel all infiltrators and stooges," said a statement issued following a protest march Sunday in Qom, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) south of Tehran and the center for Islamic study in Iran.

Some of the nearly 5,000 marchers wore blood-soaked shrouds and carried black flags as a traditional sign of mourning. They also denounced political reformers as traitors.

The newspaper was ordered closed indefinitely Saturday. Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi said three employees involved in publishing the cartoon have been arrested.

In Tehran, the newspaper's chief editor — and brother of Khomeini's successor, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — struggled to hold back tears as he addressed fellow parliamentarians in a session broadcast live on Tehran Radio.

"No one loves Imam Khomeini more than me," said Hadi Khamenei.

But he and his older brother are on opposite sides in the battles over Iran's future.

Hadi Khamenei is a top pro-reform lawmaker seeking to dilute the broad powers of the ruling clerics, led by his brother. The cartoon, plucked from a U.S. government Internet site, accompanied an interview with a member of the outlawed Freedom Movement of Iran.

The reason for the illustration is still unclear. It originally depicted a failed attempt by Roosevelt in 1937 to allow the White House to add more judges to federal courts where sitting judges were older than 70. It was seen as a bid to give Roosevelt more sway over the Supreme Court.

Iran's Parliament could soon be the forum for the most bold attempt to reshape the way Iran is ruled.

President Mohammad Khatami (news - web sites) has promised to press ahead with two bills that would remove the ruling clerics' ability to ban political candidates and weaken their control over the judiciary and security forces. No date for a vote is scheduled.

The press has suffered many causalities in the political crossfire. Conservatives have closed more than 80 publications in recent years as they try to muzzle reformers.

The cartoon apparently handed hard-liners an excuse to move against the popular Hayat-e-Nou, or "New Life," newspaper, which carried additional clout because of the family connection to Iran's most influential cleric.

"We have decided not to remain silent," said a statement from clerics in Qom. "Our objective is not merely seeking closure of a newspaper or imprisonment of a person, but eliminating bases of the enemy at the country's press."

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On the Net:

U.S. Social Security Administration (news - web sites) site with cartoon: http://www.ssa.gov/history/court.html

Source: Yahoo News

From DAWN, the Pakistani Online news:

TEHRAN, Jan 11: Iran's conservatives have called for a nationwide strike on Sunday to protest the publication of a 65-year-old US cartoon which they say insulted the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

A special court closed the Hayat-i-Nau daily on Saturday for printing the cartoon deemed insulting to the founding father of the Islamic republic, the state IRNA news agency said, while another reformist paper was also banned.

Angered by the cartoon, theology teachers announced the strike for Sunday, in what amounted to the latest salvo in the struggle between Iran's conservatives and reformists.

In a statement read on television, the powerful Association of Theology Teachers in the religious city of Qom, just south of Tehran, said divinity schools would be closed on Sunday for mass protests.

On Wednesday, Hayat-i-Nau printed a caricature published in US papers in 1937 showing former US president Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) pressing his thumb to the head of a US Supreme Court justice.

However, hardliners felt the justice - shown as an elderly bearded man dressed in a long black robe - bore a resemblance to the revered late leader of the 1979 Islamic revolution and mounted an aggressive campaign to have it shut down.

Hundreds of people demonstrated against the daily in Qom on Friday, while in Tehran scores of demonstrators gathered in front of the paper's offices.

The hardline judiciary also shut down the Bahar daily - considered close to reformist President Mohammad Khatami - which had only started publishing again two weeks ago after first being suspended more than two years ago, pending a final decision.

Last spring, the paper, owned by Khatami's press department head, was suspended for six months.

As the conservatives turned up the heat, a representative of newspaper editors on the official Press Surveillance Commission said the cartoon in Hayate No was being played up to further undermine the battered reformist movement.

"Some are seeking to create tensions to justify actions against reformist newspapers," journalist Issa Saharkhiz told AFP.

Saharkhiz said he suspected the conservatives were trying to intimidate Khatami against pushing through legislation aimed at stripping conservative-dominated institutions of some of their powers.

"In shutting the papers, they want to cut all ties between the reformists and the electorate so they can limit the participation in municipal elections on Feb 28 and show that the reformists and President Khatami have lost their popularity," he said.

Prior to the court ban, Hayat-i-Nau had already apologized and voluntarily suspended publication until Monday to try and calm the storm.

Ironically, the newspaper is managed by Hadi Khamenei, a leading reformist MP on the other side of the political spectrum from his brother, Iran's current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Hadi Khamenei was beaten two years ago by Islamic extremists during a political meeting in Qom.

Iran's judiciary, a bastion of hard-liners, have stepped up pressure on reformist papers in recent years, and in just over two years some 90 publications have been ordered to close down. Many have since reappeared, only with different titles.

MUSIC BANNED: Police in southern Iran have announced a ban on playing any kind of music in public, even on car stereos, the official IRNA news agency said on Saturday.

"According to Iran's penal code, playing authorised or unauthorised music either loudly or low is prohibited in cars, shops and taxis," IRNA quoted the police information centre in Fars province as saying.

Music had made something of a comeback in recent years as social restrictions became more relaxed following the election of moderate President Mohammad Khatami in 1997.

Concerts for officially sanctioned groups are frequently held and young motorists can often be heard blasting out the latest U.S. or European pop tunes available on pirated tapes and CDs or via the Internet. But the concerts are largely tepid affairs, with audience members prohibited from dancing and drivers are occasionally pulled over and fined for playing their music too loudly.

DEATH PENALTY: An Iranian court has sentenced a teenager to death by hanging after he was convicted for a third time of drinking alcohol, the state newspaper Iran said on Saturday.

The 19-year-old man was arrested when he appeared at a police station in southern Tehran to inquire about two of his friends who had recently been arrested.

Police noticed that the man, whose first name was given as Davoud, had been drinking alcohol and immediately charged him.-AFP / Reuters

Source: Dawn, the Pakistani online newspaper

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