Iran Holocaust cartoon contest kicks off [View All]

[bemildred]

Siavosh Ghazi
AFP
February 13, 2006

TEHRAN -- A controversial contest for cartoons of the Holocaust was launched in Iran on Monday in a tit-for-tat move over the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed that have enflamed Muslims worldwide.

The first entry was said to be from renowned Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig, according to the Website organizing the competition with Iran's biggest selling newspaper Hamshahri, triggering outrage in the United States and Germany in particular.

"As a show of solidarity with the Muslim world, and an exercise in free speech, I would like to submit a cartoon to you on the theme of the Holocaust," Leunig was quoted as saying in a statement on the Irancartoons.com Website.

Hardline President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has already prompted international anger by dismissing the systematic slaughter by the Nazis of mainland Europe's Jews as a "myth" used to justify the creation of Israel.

Middle East Times