Iran won't compete in Oscar race

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LOS ANGELES, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- Iranian officials said the country's film-making community will boycott the 2013 Oscars competition in Hollywood.

Iranian director Asghar Farhadi's drama "A Separation" won the best foreign language Oscar this year and Reza Mirkarimi's comedy "A Cube of Sugar" was expected to be the country's entry for next year's competition. However, Iran's culture minister said the country will not compete as part of the backlash over the controversial independent U.S. film "Innocence of Muslims," The Guardian newspaper in London reported.

"I am officially announcing that in reaction to the intolerable insult to the great prophet of Islam we will refrain from taking part in this year's Oscars and we ask other Islamic nations to show their protest like this," culture minister Mohammad Hosseini told the ISNA state news agency. "This film was made in America and the Oscars are held there, and so far no official stance by the nation that made this film has been taken."