Wiesenthal Center: "Those Who Besmirch Victims Of Genocide Cannot Build Bridges Between Civilizations"

        The Simon Wiesenthal Center expressed outrage over the Greek Culture Ministry's decision to include an Iranian artist involved in a recent ‘contest’ caricaturing the Nazi Holocaust, as a judge in a contest entitled: ‘The Cartoon as a Bridge Between Civilizations.’
       
        “Greek officials launched this project on May 3rd, World Press Freedom Day, to contribute to ‘dialogue and understanding,’ but the inclusion of Massud Shojai, the head of Iran Cartoon, the group that co-sponsored a (Nazi) Holocaust Cartoon contest that demeaned the victims of history’s worst genocide, only mocks the freedoms we all cherish and further embolden those who seek to build international bridges based on hatred and intolerance,” charged Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center.
       
“It is truly a sad day for freedom of the press when instead of standing up to the bullying tactics and threats that followed the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed last year, the organizers of this event include an individual who marches in lockstep with the head of a regime in Tehran who denies the Holocaust and threatens genocide against a member state of the United Nations that is home to the Jewish survivors of the Nazi's Final Solution,” Cooper concluded.

        The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE and the Council of Europe.

For more information, please contact the Center's Public Relations Department, 310-553-9036.