COPENHAGEN, Denmark - The Associated Press protested Wednesday the misleading inclusion of an AP photograph in a pamphlet purporting to show images offensive to Islam. The picture shows a bearded man wearing fake pig ears, a pig nose, and a pink embroidered cap on his head. He was wearing the costume while participating in a pig-squealing contest at an annual festival in a farm village in southern France last summer.
The AP sent out the photo describing the pig-squealing contest on Aug. 14, 2005. The photo had no connection with Islam or the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published in a Danish newspaper in September.
A blurry, black-and-white copy of the picture was included in a brochure that a delegation of Danish Muslim leaders carried on a Mideast tour to Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Turkey, in December and January. "The photograph was taken at an agriculture fair last summer and is totally unrelated to the current controversy," said AP's Director of Photography Santiago Lyon.
Jack Stokes, an AP spokesman, said the picture was used "completely out of context and without permission. "AP is attempting to contact the distributors of this unrelated photo to protest its misrepresentation and demand that they stop immediately," he said.
The brochure purported to show examples of anti-Muslim images from Europe, said Ahmed Akkari, a spokesman for the group. Included were 12 controversial drawings of the Prophet Muhammad that were published in Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, he said. The group received copies of the AP picture in threatening anonymous letters last year, Akkari said. "We did not find it ourselves," he told the AP, saying he had been unaware of the origin of the photograph and said he believed it was sent to the group as an example of a provocation.
When told about the background of the original AP photo, Akkari said: "I have no comments." 
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