ABC News
Cartoon Backlash: Iranian Newspaper Seeks Holocaust Caricatures
Iranian Paper Says It Will Hold Contest for Cartoons on the Holocaust
By NASSER KARIMI
TEHRAN, Iran Feb 7, 2006 (AP) 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 Muhammad.
Hamshahri, which is among the top five of Iran's mass circulation papers, made clear the contest is a reaction to European newspapers' publication of Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, which have led to demonstrations, boycotts and attacks on European embassies across the Islamic world.
Hundreds of Iranians hurled stones, and sometimes gasoline bombs, at the Danish and Austrian embassies in Tehran in protest against the cartoons on Monday. The Austrian mission was targeted as the country currently holds the EU presidency.
The newspaper said Tuesday the contest would be launched on Feb. 13 and would be co-convened by itself and the House of Caricatures, a Tehran exhibition center for cartoons. Both the paper and the cartoon center are owned by the Tehran Municipality, which is dominated by allies of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is well known for his opposition to Israel.
Last year Ahmadinejad provoked outcries when he said on separate occasions that Israel should be "wiped out" and the Holocaust was a "myth."
Hamshahri invited foreign cartoonists to enter the competition and said it wanted to see how open the West was to caricatures of the Holocaust.
"Does the West extend freedom of expression to the crimes committed by the United States and Israel, or an event such as the Holocaust? Or is its freedom only for insulting religious sanctities?" Hamshahri wrote, referring to the Prophet Muhammad cartoons, in a short article on its back page.
The paper disclosed its plan to hold the competition in an inside page on Monday, saying it would announce details on Tuesday. But Tuesday's edition said the plans would be published next Monday.
Meanwhile, state television reported Tuesday that Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki had called his Danish counterpart, Per Stig Moeller, and urged Copenhagen and other European governments to "compensate for their mistake" in publishing the drawings.
The website of Hamshahri newspaper was brought down this week in response to an internet attack. Hamshahri Daily is an Iranian newspaper that sponsored a contest to produce cartoons denying the existence of the Holocaust. Service to the website was restored today, after several days offline.

Hamshahri Daily sponsored the cartoon competition on February 8. The contest followed upon the controversy caused by the twelve cartoons published by the Danish newspaper w:Jyllands-Posten|. Those twelve cartoons sparked outrage and have led to widespread demonstrations and boycotts.

Last year, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied the existence of the Holocaust, saying "They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and place this above God, religions and the prophets".

The Hamashahri website was the subject of a 'denial-of-service' attack. In a denial-of-service attack, attackers bombard the website with requests for pages until the server overloads.

Hamshahri Daily is owned by the Tehran Municipality, which is allied with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad is the former mayor of Tehran.