Holocaust cartoon contest on
2006-02-13 14:56
Tehran - An Iranian website which has launched a competition for cartoons of the Holocaust in a tit-for-tat move over the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad says it has received its first entry, from renowned Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig.
"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 on the website.
The website set up the competition with Iran's biggest selling newspaper Hamshahri, triggering outrage in the United States and Germany in particular.
Hardline President Mahmoud 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.
The first of Leunig's two cartoons on the website show a poor man with a Star of David on his back walking towards the Auschwitz death camp in 1945 with the words "Work Brings Freedom" over the entrance.
The second shows the same scene but depicting "Israel 2002" with the slogan "War Brings Peace" over entrance and the same man walking towards it bearing a rifle.
"I have had some difficulty getting this work published in my own country, and I believe it would help highlight the hypocrisy of the West's attitude to free speech if you were to publish it," Leunig was quoted as saying.