Post by buksh26 on Feb 13, 2006 18:58:20 GMT -5
Leunig publishes Holocaust cartoon
By Siavosh Ghazi in tehran
February 14, 2006
RENOWNED Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig has submitted the first entry
in a controversial contest for cartoons of the Holocaust launched in Iran in
a tit-for-tat move over the caricatures of the prophet Mohammed that have
enraged Muslims worldwide.
"As a show of solidarity with the Muslim world, and an exercise in free
speech, I would like to submit a cartoon to you on the theme of the
Holocaust," Leunig was quoted as saying on Irancartoons.com, the website
organising the competition with Iran's biggest selling newspaper Hamshahri,
triggering outrage in the US and Germany in particular.
Hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has already prompted international
anger by dismissing the systematic slaughter by the Nazis of mainland
Europe's Jews as a "myth" used to justify the creation of Israel.
The first of the Melbourne-based Leunig's two cartoons on the website show a
poor man with a Star of David on his back walking towards the Auschwitz
death camp in 1945 with the words "Work Brings Freedom" over the entrance.
The second shows the same scene but depicting "Israel 2002" with the slogan
"War Brings Peace" over the entrance and the same man walking towards it
bearing a rifle.
"I have had some difficulty getting this work published in my own country,
and I believe it would help highlight the hypocrisy of the West's attitude
to free speech if you were to publish it," Leunig was quoted as saying.
Source: The Daily Telegraph
By Siavosh Ghazi in tehran
February 14, 2006
RENOWNED Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig has submitted the first entry
in a controversial contest for cartoons of the Holocaust launched in Iran in
a tit-for-tat move over the caricatures of the prophet Mohammed that have
enraged Muslims worldwide.
"As a show of solidarity with the Muslim world, and an exercise in free
speech, I would like to submit a cartoon to you on the theme of the
Holocaust," Leunig was quoted as saying on Irancartoons.com, the website
organising the competition with Iran's biggest selling newspaper Hamshahri,
triggering outrage in the US and Germany in particular.
Hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has already prompted international
anger by dismissing the systematic slaughter by the Nazis of mainland
Europe's Jews as a "myth" used to justify the creation of Israel.
The first of the Melbourne-based Leunig's two cartoons on the website show a
poor man with a Star of David on his back walking towards the Auschwitz
death camp in 1945 with the words "Work Brings Freedom" over the entrance.
The second shows the same scene but depicting "Israel 2002" with the slogan
"War Brings Peace" over the entrance and the same man walking towards it
bearing a rifle.
"I have had some difficulty getting this work published in my own country,
and I believe it would help highlight the hypocrisy of the West's attitude
to free speech if you were to publish it," Leunig was quoted as saying.
Source: The Daily Telegraph