Iranian students protesting against a film critical of Islam found themselves outnumbered by police and press outside the Dutch embassy on Saturday. Police pushed the protesters back after they threw three or four eggs and a couple of small stones.
The small, largely peaceful crowd that gathered to protest over the video by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders was in contrast to the violent protests at the Danish embassy in 2006 after blasphemous publication. A Reuters reporter estimated the number of demonstrators at about 40, compared with three times as many police protecting the embassy.
The university students called for the expulsion of the Dutch ambassador and chanted other slogans. One speaker at the rally demanded oil group Royal Dutch Shell be thrown out of the world's fourth-largest crude producer. "The Zionist company of Shell should be expelled from Iran," he told the crowd.