Iran’s chief state prosecutor, Ayatollah Dorri Najaf-Abadi, believes the burning down of embassies in the wake of the Danish cartoons of Mohammed is perfectly fine.

“Muslims must take the most ferocious stance against insults to Islamic sanctities”, the senior cleric told Ayatollah Dorri Najaf-Abadi, the country’s Chief State Prosecutor, according to the Persian-language website Khedmat.

“If setting fire to embassies of countries that insult the Prophet aims to show that these countries no longer have any place in Islamic countries then this act is permissible”, the senior ayatollah was quoted as saying.

“Anyone who dies in this path [of protests against the insults] is a martyr”, he said.

What exactly is a free press? I wouldn’t expect those running Iran to know.

In other protests news in Iran, a nation which forbids protests of any kind unless they are sanctioned by the government, the British embassy is apparently under siege. This protest has nothing to do with the cartoons, but the bombing of the Al Askariya Shrine that Iran continues to blame on Israeli and U.S. soldiers.

From Iran’s state-run IRNA:

Fierce protest is underway in front of British Embassy in Tehran on Sunday with large number of students and theological students expressing outrage at desecration of holy shrine of Imam Hadi (AS) and Imam Hassan Askariya (AS) in Samarra.

The students which were both Shia and Sunni Muslims staged a peaceful demonstration and performed unity prayers.

Several protesters wearing shrouds held arrogant occupation forces in Iraq responsible for the heinous crime perpetrated against the holy shrines in Samarra.

They also beat their chests as sign of mourning to commemorate the tragedy in Samarra.

Demonstrators pelted stones and Molotov cocktail at the compound of the British Embassy which caused fire with black smoke rising to the sky.

Police special guards are enforcing strict measures to prevent students from approaching the Embassy.

Iranian police apparently fired tear gas into the crowds in order to prevent the students from attacking the embassy, but I assume throwing molotov cocktails is fine as long as the students don’t actually approach the embassy.  As I have said before, the Coalition has nothing to gain by attacking the Shrine, but Iran has everything to gain and very little, if anything, to lose from such an attack.