IRANIAN President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that “Zionists” were behind a cartoon in Swedish newspaper Nerikes Allehanda, which depicted the head of the Prophet Mohammed on a dog’s body. The drawing sparked an official protest by Tehran to Stockholm.

“They do not want the Swedish government to be a friend of other nations. I strongly believe they are behind it (the cartoon). They thrive on conflict and war,” he said.

The claim came during a tirade against Israel, in which Ahmadinejad accused Zionists of sowing conflict, publishing offensive cartoons and “lying about being Jewish.”

“Zionists are people without any religion,” Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly predicted that Israel is doomed to disappear, told a news conference in Tehran.

“They are lying about being Jewish because religion means brotherhood, friendship and respecting other divine religions,” he said.

“They are an organised minority who have infiltrated the world. They are not even a 10,000-strong organisation,” he said.

“Anywhere they are found there is war. Anywhere where there is war they are behind it,” Ahmadinejad added.

See full report here

Meanwhile, the newspaper at the centre of the row today defended the publication publication of the drawing by Swedish artist Lars Vilks.

It was part of a series which art galleries in Sweden had declined to display. The newspaper published the image in what it called a defence of free speech.

“This is unacceptable self-censorship,” the newspaper wrote in an editorial on its Web site on Wednesday, referring to the reluctance by galleries to exhibit Vilks’s drawings.

“The right to freedom of religion and the right to blaspheme religions go together,” it wrote.

Sweden’s Muslim Council, an umbrella organisation for Islamic groups in the country, took issue with Nerikes Allehanda’s arguments.

Helena Benauda, chair of the council, said she was surprised because the newspaper had been involved in a dialogue with Muslims following the Danish controversy. Benauda told Reuters:

I think they did understand our point of view – that you should not publish pictures that could be seen as racist, xenophobic or anti-Semitic.

Ulf Johansson, editor-in-chief of Nerikes Allehanda, said there was a difference between how his newspaper was approaching the issue and the Danish case.

This newspaper has always been very eager to defend Muslim rights in Sweden and freedom of religion overall. But we are also very clear that the freedom of speech goes hand-in-hand with that.

Leader writer Lars Ströman told The Local:

The right to caricature a religion and the right to practice a religion are connected.

Meanwhile, he has received support from the Swedish Association of Newspaper Publishers, which said it was important to defend the publication of controversial work.

We could not find the illustration in question, but can can view some very non-pc depictions of Mohammed here