Swedish artist Lars Vilks created a series of sketches showing Mohammed as a “roundabout dog,” and I’ll bet you can already guess where this is headed: Iran protests over Swedish Muhammad cartoon.

Iran summoned a Swedish diplomat to its foreign ministry on Monday to protest against a cartoon in a Swedish newspaper depicting the head of Prophet Muhammad on a dog’s body, Sweden’s foreign ministry said.

“Gunilla von Bahr, Sweden’s charge d’affaires, was summoned to the Iranian foreign ministry today where she received a protest from the Iranian government,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Anna Bj�rkander told AFP.

The Iranian government told Von Bahr the cartoon was “offensive to Prophet Muhammad,” Bj�rkander said, refusing to disclose any further details of the meeting.

The cartoon was drawn by Swedish artist Lars Vilks, whose series of drawings of the prophet as a dog have sparked a controversy in Sweden. Several art galleries refused to display the sketches amid fears of angry reactions from Muslims.

The Orebro local newspaper Nerikes Allehanda published one of the drawings on August 18 to illustrate an editorial on self-censorship and freedom of religion.

What’s this world coming to, when a newspaper is more concerned with freedom of speech than with offending 25.8 trillion Muslims?

Vilks has also been receiving death threats, of course.

UPDATE at 8/27/07 11:18:30 am:

PJ Media has more about the Vilks controversy, from Danish journalist Flemming Rose: Cartoon crisis in Sweden.