Iran Displays Holocaust Cartoons

Exhibition Launched In Response To Danish Newspaper's Muhammad Cartoons

(AP)  An exhibition of more than 200 cartoons about the Holocaust opened Monday as Iran's response to last year's Muslim outrage over a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper.

The display, showing 204 entries from Iran and abroad, was strongly influenced by the views of Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who drew widespread condemnation last year for calling the Holocaust a "myth" and saying Israel should be destroyed.

One cartoon by Indonesian Tony Thomdean shows the Statue of Liberty holding a book on the Holocaust in its left hand and giving a Nazi-style salute with the other.

Masoud Shojai, director of the host Caricature House, said a jury looked through 1,200 entries received after the contest was announced in February by the co-sponsor, the Iranian newspaper Hamshahri.

It came following worldwide protests by Muslims against the Muhammad cartoon published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Many Muslims considered the cartoon offensive and a violation of traditions prohibiting images of their prophet.

Hamshahri said it wanted to test the West's tolerance for drawings about the Nazi killing of 6 million Jews in World War II. The entries on display came from nations including United States, Indonesia and Turkey.

About 50 people attended the exhibition's opening.

"I came to learn more about the roots of the Holocaust and the basis of Israel's emergence," said 23-year-old Zahra Amoli.

The exhibition runs until Sept. 13 and the winner will receive $12,000. The exhibition hall is next to the Palestinian Authority's embassy, which was Israel's diplomatic site in Iran before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

[dansmithdan]

Although I will probably find many of these cartoons offensive, I applaud the use of this forum rather than street riots and killing people who disagree with your viewpoint. It is a small step, but it is a step towards sanity.

With regard to the description of one cartoon in the column, most Americans are aware of the United States' willful denial of what wsa happening in Germany until late in WWII. This is our shame.

[tellitasitis]

ok that's it!! lets burn down all the iranian embassies around the world and stage protests uh I mean riots to protest this unimaginable....

oops - sorry I'm not muslim I can't do that......

[robogiscard]

Free speech :)

[fartnocker2]

Would you expect anything less from Satins Army and people .

[blood3085]

How can a country make fun of something that was so horrible and messed up. I guess thats what you would expect from muslims. Iran and all the arab countries wanna start i fight. Im ready for a fight bring it on!

[ocgiraffe]

I will be curious to see if news publications like the NY Times and Newsweek print these cartoons. If they do, it proves that they refused to print the Muhammad cartoons out of fear for retaliation, not cultural sensitivity like they claimed.

[abasaleh-2009]

"response to last year's Muslim outrage over a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper. " it's a lie . I live in Iran. they wanted to USE "freedom of speech" to achive their political targets. they just say if you can insult our No1 Man and call it Freedom of Speech , we also want to criticize this historical FACT (oh really?) and call it freedom speech .
now why someone must be so anger to this matter that say : "Would you expect anything less from Satins Army and people ." ? Relax !

[whyaminother]

So...

That means now we%u2019re allowed to torch flags and burn up embassies and behave uncivilized? (Islamic alike?)

...

[whyaminother]

So...

That means now we%u2019re allowed to torch flags and burn up embassies and behave uncivilized? (Islamic alike?)

...

[whyaminother]

That means now we%u2019re allowed to torch flags and burn up embassies and behave uncivilized? (Islamic alike?)

[whyaminother]

That means now we%u2019re allowed to torch flags and burn up embassies and behave uncivilized? (Islamic alike)

[waterwhenwet]

I guess you can only say one thing about this is " what's good for the goose is good for the gander". Each have now had their opinion.