Ahh, that Ahmadinejad… always concerned about freedom of speech, isn’t he? Such a great supporter of healthy debates.
In this case about the Holocaust:
At the opening of the conference, Iran said the event would not be an attempt to deny the World War II genocide but merely to discuss it in an unrestricted atmosphere.
However, the conference was initiated by Ahmadinejad, who has described the Holocaust as a “myth” and called for Israel to be wiped off the map.
The organizers, the Foreign Ministry’s Institute for Political and International Studies (IPIS), said the two-day conference had drawn 67 foreign researchers from 30 countries.
In his opening speech, the institute’s chief, Rasoul Mousavi, said the conference “seeks neither to deny or prove the Holocaust.”
“It is just to provide an appropriate scientific atmosphere for scholars to offer their opinions in freedom about a historical issue,” Mousavi said.
He said the conference provided an opportunity to discuss “questions” about the Holocaust away from Western taboos and the restrictions imposed on scholars in Europe.
Israel’s reaction:
Israel’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Monday strongly condemning the International Conference for the Denial of the Holocaust that began earlier in the day in Teheran.
“Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who continuously calls for the destruction of Israel, has compared Auschwitz to Israel, thus falsifying past and present,” the ministry said in a statement.
It is obviously about a fair and open debate. Hence the reason for this:
But yesterday Khaled Kasab Mahameed learnt from the Iranian Foreign Ministry — which had invited him to speak — that he would not receive a visa. No reason was given.
Mr Mahameed suspects that it was because he has an Israeli passport. It may also have been because he has made clear what he intended to say.
“I’m bitterly disappointed,� Mr Mahameed, who studied at a British university, told The Times. He was seeking a personal audience with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, to tell him that denials or questioning of “such huge, monstrous horror� harmed the Palestinian cause.
And he’s right about that of course. People will have little sympathy for the Palestinian ’cause’, if some of its main ‘spokesmen’ are happily denying that the Holocaust happened.
On the other hand… Since when does Iran care about the Palestinians?
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