May 2006 saw the publication of  one of cartoonist Mana Neyestani’s cartoons in Iran newspaper lead to controversy that led to ethnic riots in Iran. Following the riots, Mehrdad Ghasemfar,  the editor in chief of the paper, was arrested alongside Neyestani.  

After the widespread riots in Azerbaijani cities, including Tabriz, the Media Monitoring Council had an urgent meeting and suspended the publication of Iran newspaper. Prior to this, the paper published an official apology and said that Neyestani had been fired. Shortly after, the Judiciary Spokesperson stated that the arrest warrants for the cartoonist and the editor in chief of the paper had been issued, and the Tabriz Prosecutor said that his office was suing the paper in the criminal court.

The cartoon was published on May 12th 2006, in the children’s section of the paper, as part of a series of cartoons and satires with the title, “What to do to stop cockroaches from turning us to them”. The cartoon depicted a child talking to cockroaches in “Cockroachian” language. The cockroach doesn’t understand the child and responds back in Azerbaijani with, “What was that?”

The cartoon description elaborates: “The problem is that cockroaches don’t speak any human languages and Cockroachian grammar is so complex that even 80 percent of cockroaches don’t know it and, therefore, prefer to learn other languages. When cockroaches don’t speak Cockroachian, how do you wanna figure that out?”

Neyestani addressed the controversy: “The Azerbaijani phrases that I used in the roach’s dialogue are the phrases that are being used frequently by Persian speakers in today’s society – which shows how popular the Azerbaijani language is among Persian speakers. In addition, on the same page and on many other pages of the controversial issue of the paper, there are many other instances of cartoons of cockroaches and frogs that speak with a heavy Tehrani accent and no Tehrani took offense, [although they] thought I meant [that] Tehrani citizens are cockroaches.”  

The suspension of the paper lasted for five months. After a complete change in the managerial and editorial team, publication began again. The managing editor of the paper, Ghlomhossein Eslamifar, was also exonerated from the alleged charges. “The characters and cartoons in other parts of the journal were speaking all kinds of popular dialects in the country. It’s clear that the cartoonist did not mean to offend any specific ethnicity and certainly not Azerbaijanis”, Eslamifar explained to the court.

Ghasemfar was given temporary prison leave after 90 days in custody and fled the country. Currently, he is a reporter at Radio Farda (“Radio Tomorrow”).