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<DIV>These people lost their right to have these cartoons published around the
world because they rioted all over the place and caused a lot of
damage.</DIV>
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<DIV>Dick Schmidt</DIV>
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<H1>Iran to publish Holocaust cartoons</H1>
<DIV id=promoTopRight>From: Agence France-Presse </DIV>
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<DIV id=storyAuthorName>From correspondents in Tehran</DIV><BR>February 07, 2006
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<P class=storyBodyInitial>IRAN'S largest selling newspaper announced today it
was holding a contest on cartoons of the Holocaust in response to the publishing
in European papers of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.</P>"It will be an
international cartoon contest about the Holocaust," said Farid Mortazavi, the
graphics editor for <I>Hamshahri</I> newspaper - which is published by Teheran's
conservative municipality.
<P>He said the plan was to turn the tables on the assertion that newspapers can
print offensive material in the name of freedom of expression.
<P>"The Western papers printed these sacrilegious cartoons on the pretext of
freedom of expression, so let's see if they mean what they say and also print
these Holocaust cartoons," he said.
<P>Iran's fiercely anti-Israeli regime is supportive of so-called Holocaust
revisionist historians, who maintain the systematic slaughter by the Nazis of
mainland Europe's Jews as well as other groups during World War II has been
either invented or exaggerated.
<P>Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prompted international anger
when he dismissed the systematic slaughter by the Nazis of mainland Europe's
Jews as a "myth" used to justify the creation of Israel.
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Mr Mortazavi said tomorrow's edition of the paper will invite cartoonists to
enter the competition, with "private individuals" offering gold coins to the
best 12 artists - the same number of cartoons that appeared in the Danish
newspaper <I>Jyllands-Posten</I>. </DIV>
<P>Last week, the Iranian foreign ministry also invited British Prime Minister
Tony Blair to Teheran to take part in a planned conference on the Holocaust,
even though the idea has been branded by Mr Blair as "shocking, ridiculous,
stupid".
<P>Mr Blair also said Mr Ahmadinejad "should come and see the evidence of the
Holocaust himself in the countries of Europe", to which Iran responded by saying
it was willing to send a team of "independent investigators".
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