Iran to publish Holocaust cartoons
From: Agence France-Presse From correspondents in Tehran
February 07, 2006
IRAN'S largest selling newspaper announced today it was holding a
contest on cartoons of the Holocaust in response to the publishing in
European papers of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.
"It will be an international cartoon contest about the Holocaust,"
said Farid Mortazavi, the graphics editor for Hamshahri newspaper -
which is published by Teheran's conservative municipality.
He said the plan was to turn the tables on the assertion that
newspapers can print offensive material in the name of freedom of
expression.
"The Western papers printed these sacrilegious cartoons on the pretext
of freedom of expression, so let's see if they mean what they say and
also print these Holocaust cartoons," he said.
Iran's fiercely anti-Israeli regime is supportive of so-called
Holocaust revisionist historians, who maintain the systematic
slaughter by the Nazis of mainland Europe's Jews as well as other
groups during World War II has been either invented or exaggerated.
Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prompted international
anger when he dismissed the systematic slaughter by the Nazis of
mainland Europe's Jews as a "myth" used to justify the creation of
Israel.
Mr Mortazavi said tomorrow's edition of the paper will invite
cartoonists to enter the competition, with "private individuals"
offering gold coins to the best 12 artists - the same number of
cartoons that appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
Last week, the Iranian foreign ministry also invited British Prime
Minister Tony Blair to Teheran to take part in a planned conference on
the Holocaust, even though the idea has been branded by Mr Blair as
"shocking, ridiculous, stupid".
Mr Blair also said Mr Ahmadinejad "should come and see the evidence of
the Holocaust himself in the countries of Europe", to which Iran
responded by saying it was willing to send a team of "independent
investigators".
--
"The president and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing
their memory, or their backbone, but we're not going to sit by and
let them rewrite history." -- ***** Cheney 11/16/2005
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography" -- Ambrose Bierce
"America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy." -- John Updike
"Long term commitment in relationships is only necessary because it takes
so damn long to raise children. Marriage may well be some kind of trick
to keep the males around beyond sexual satiation." -- Captain Compassion
"Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.
--Will Durant
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net
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