Iranian paper to hold contest for Holocaust cartoons

A prominent Iranian newspaper says it is going to hold a competition for cartoons on the Holocaust to test whether the West will apply the principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide against Jews as it did to the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

Hamshahri, which is among the top five of Iran’s mass circulation papers, made clear the contest was a reaction to European newspapers’ publication of Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, which have led to attacks on European embassies across the Islamic world.

The newspaper said the contest would be launched on Monday and would be co-convened by itself and the House of Caricatures, a Tehran exhibition centre for cartoons.

Both the paper and the cartoon centre are owned by the Tehran Municipality, which is dominated by allies of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is known for his opposition to Israel.

Hamshahri invited foreign cartoonists to enter the competition and said it wanted to see how open the West was to such drawings.