Iran launches Holocaust cartoon contest

A LEADING Iranian newspaper is to hold a competition for cartoons on the Holocaust in what it calls a test of whether the West extends the principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide as it did to the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

Hamshahri, one of Iran’s largest papers, made clear the contest is a reaction to European newspapers’ publication of Danish cartoons of Mohammed, which have led to demonstrations, boycotts and attacks on European embassies across the Islamic world. Several people have been killed.

Meanwhile, the country’s supreme leader said the West’s publication of the cartoons was an Israeli conspiracy motivated by anger over Hamas’s win in the Palestinian elections.