Moroccan wins Iran's Holocaust cartoon contest
The Age ^ | 11/2/06
theage.com.au
A Moroccan won first prize today in Iran's International Holocaust Cartoons Contest, which had sparked outrage in Israel, the West and among Jewish groups.
Iran's best-selling newspaper, Hamshahri, launched a competition in February to find the best cartoon about the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were killed by the Nazis.
The contest was a retaliation for last year's publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad in Danish and other European newspapers that angered Muslims worldwide.
Presenting a prize to a representative of Moroccan cartoonist Abdellah Derkaoui, Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Mohammad Hossein Saffar-Harandi praised Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has described the Holocaust as a "myth".
"Our president was the brave and freedom-seeking person who started this debate without being concerned about its consequences," Saffar-Harandi said.
Derkaoui's cartoon shows a crane with a Star of David sign, putting up blocks making a wall separating the Muslim shrine, the Dome of the Rock, from Jerusalem. The wall has a gate, shown in the distance, that looks like one at the Auschwitz concentration camp, where Jews were incarcerated and killed.
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