March 15, 2006
The contest for Holocaust-related cartoons conducted by the Iranian newspaper "Hamshahri" has received 700 entries from 200 people, with some drawings mocking the mass murder committed by the Nazis during World War II: one entry shows Jews going into a gas pipeline. Most contest entrants are Iranian, but six are from the United States and a few cartoons have been submitted from as far away as Indonesia and Brazil, according to "Hamshahri". A few of the drawings have been posted online. Hamshahri began the contest last month as a test of the West's readiness to print cartoons about the Nazi killing of six million Jews in the Second World War. The contest, which will run until May 15, comes in response to caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that sparked protests across much of the Muslim world. One submission reflects the opinion of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who drew international outrage when he called the Holocaust "a myth". The caricature by the Iranian Firouzeh Mozafari shows a circle of nine Jewish men entering and leaving a gas chamber that shows a counter reading "5,999,999," implying that Jews have inflated the number of Holocaust victims.
Read about the WJC's compaign for international condemnation of President Ahmadinejad
