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2006 cockroach cartoon protests
A government-run newspaper cartoon depicting an Azerbaijani-speaking cockroach triggered large protests across Iranian Azerbaijani cities.
What happened
On 12 May 2006, the government-run newspaper Iran published a cartoon depicting a cockroach responding in the Azerbaijani language; the cartoon triggered several days of large protests across predominantly Azerbaijani-populated Iranian cities including Tabriz, Urmia, Ardabil, Zanjan and Naghadeh.[1]
The Iranian government acknowledged 4 protester deaths and 330 detentions, while Amnesty International and Azerbaijani advocacy sources reported substantially higher figures; this bundle presents these as disputed, attributed figures rather than an independently verified count. The newspaper apologized on 21 May 2006, and the cartoonist and editor-in-chief were arrested.[1]
Sources for this page
Each number marks a specific claim. Notes give the source, its locator and how it relates to the claim.
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1.
Claim: On 12 May 2006, the government-run newspaper Iran published a cartoon in its children's supplement depicting a cockroach responding in the Azerbaijani language; the cartoon triggered several days of large protests across predominantly Azerbaijani-populated Iranian cities including Tabriz, Urmia, Ardabil, Zanjan and Naghadeh. The Iranian government acknowledged 4 protester deaths and 330 detentions, while Amnesty International and Azerbaijani advocacy sources reported substantially higher figures, including claims of at least 20 deaths and reports of several thousand detained or killed; this bundle presents these as disputed, attributed figures rather than an independently verified count. The newspaper apologized on 21 May 2006, and the cartoonist and editor-in-chief were arrested.
- Iran newspaper cockroach cartoon controversy (Wikipedia) link, Cartoon, protests and casualty-figures sections. Source record