EJP | News | Germany | Muslim institute dares Iranian leader to visit Auschwitz

	Saturday, July 04, 2009 12 Tamuz, 5769

News

France

Germany

Western Europe

Eastern Europe

EU-Israel affairs

US 2008 ELECTION

Iran - Holocaust

Conflict in Gaza

Voices

Culture

In Depth

Mideast Crisis

World Cup

On Anglo Jewry

Week at a glance

France Election

EU and Annapolis Summit

News from outside of Europe

Holocaust Remembrance Day

Mumbai Terror

DURBAN II

WILLIAMSON

The Calendar

Links

Muslim institute dares Iranian leader to visit Auschwitz

Updated: 14/Feb/2006 18:50

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Page tools

	Email to friend
	Print this page
	Bookmark this page
	Add your view

A Muslim cultural institute in Germany on Monday criticised Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for disparaging the Holocaust, daring him to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp.

"In this place of horror he can again deny the Holocaust, if he has the courage," a spokesman for the Islam-Archiv-Deutschland Central Institute told the German Catholic press agency KNA.

In recent statements, the hardline Iranian president has dismissed the Nazis’ systematic slaughter of mainland Europe’s Jews as a "myth" used to justify the creation of Israel and called for the state to be "wiped off the map".

By denying the Holocaust, Ahmadinejad not only denigrated the Jewish victims of the genocide but also the 200,000 Roms and Arabs murdered in the "gypsy camp" of Auschwitz-Birkenau and other camps, the institute spokesman said.

The fact that the president of an Islamic state repeated Nazi anti-Semitism was harmful to the image of Islam and "a disgrace for all the world’s Muslims", he added.

The Berlin-based institute, founded in 1927, is the oldest Muslim body in Germany.

It has been dedicated to preserving the community’s archives since the 18th century and fostering relations between Muslims and other religions.

A controversial contest for cartoons of the Holocaust was launched in Iran on Monday in a tit-for-tat move over European newspaper publications of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed that have angered Muslims worldwide.

The first entry was said to be from renowned Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig, according to the website organising the competition with Iran’s biggest-selling newspaper Hamshahri.

Day in history

4 July 1976
The Entebbe Rescue

256 hostages from an Air France plane are held prisoners by Palestinian terrorists and Ugandan soldiers at Entebbe airport.

After 8 days they are rescued by Israeli commandos in a brilliant ruse under the command of Yonatan Netanyahu who was shot in the back during the rescue.