A fat pitch from Iran

Iran to test West’s commitment to press freedom with Holocaust cartoon contest

A prominent Iranian newspaper said Tuesday it would hold a competition for cartoons on the Holocaust to test whether the West extends the principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide as it did to the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.Hamshahri, one of Iran’s largest papers, invited foreign cartoonists to enter the competition, making clear the contest is a reaction to European newspapers’ publication of Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

I’ll re-print them, and link to them. In a heartbeat.

Update: I’ve thought more about this, and while I will still re-print Hamshahri’s Holocaust cartoons, the Iranian “challenge” wholly misses the point. The point is freedom of the press. The Iranians can print whatever they want in their media. The Danes can print whatever they want in theirs. I can print whatever I want, here on my tiny blog.

And none of the above are cause for riots, embassy burnings, violence, trade wars, and general global outrage. (I guess I can’t complain about boycotts; that’s simply a form of free speech.)

Comments

  1. tim wrote:

    I wonder if CNN will blur them out?

    Posted 07 Feb 2006 at 10:40 am

  2. The Sanity Inspector wrote:

    …???…

    It’s not as if we can’t see these types of ‘toons all the time, via Memri.org and LGF.

    Posted 07 Feb 2006 at 10:41 am

  3. commissar wrote:

    Bruce,

    Exactly. So I’ll do it. I thought I had even seen one yesterday (a less formal challenge, but the same idea). I can’t find it in my browser history now. Maybe the Jews removed it. :)

    Posted 07 Feb 2006 at 10:55 am

  4. Michael Bains wrote:

    I might link to it, but I wouldn’t post those pics either. Poor taste IMO.

    The real point is that they are insane enough to equate comics of a somewhat recently attempted genocidal political movement with comics about a religion and its founder.

    Apples and Organges are more closely related in nature than these two issues.

    Posted 07 Feb 2006 at 2:09 pm

  5. commissar wrote:

    Michael,

    With all respect, I disagree. “Offensive” is “Offensive.”

    Whether the offended party’s religion, politics, sense of truth (Holocaust), sexual prudery, sexual insulted does not matter. Indeed Michael, many Muslims right in comments on this blog, “It’s okay to caricature Ariel Sharon eating babies, but not my REVERED PROHPET (PBUH). Its appples and oranges (the Muslim says) because the cartoon of Sharon was not directed against a RELIGIOUS figure.”

    Posted 07 Feb 2006 at 2:25 pm

  6. The Sanity Inspector wrote:

    I guess what I meant is that I don’t know what the Iranian newspapers are thinking, having a cartoon contest as if it’s something out of the ordinary. Don’t they publish dreck like that all the time anyway?

    Posted 07 Feb 2006 at 10:00 pm

  7. Karl Rove wrote:

    “Publish and be damned” (Dook o’ Wellington)

    “Publish and be bombed” (Osama etc.)

    Posted 08 Feb 2006 at 5:44 am

  8. hass wrote:

    Funny that insulting Islam is “free speech” and is legal where as insulting Israel is “anti-semitism” and can lead to jail in many Europoean countries.

    Posted 10 Feb 2006 at 6:52 pm

  9. commissar wrote:

    hass,

    You lie.

    The British Political Cartoon Society has awarded first prize in its annual competition to Dave Brown of the Independent for this cartoon showing Ariel Sharon eating an Arab baby. Should I share some of the “respectful’ items from the Arab press?
    independent_sharon.jpg

    Posted 10 Feb 2006 at 11:35 pm

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