Iranians protest Holocaust conference

A recent news report said,

In a statement to be published next week, more than 100 Iranian activists outside that country have condemned its recent conference questioning the Holocaust.

The statement, which began circulating last month, is to be printed next week in The New York Review of Books. The Associated Press recently obtained a copy.

. . . . .The statement notes that the activists signed notwithstanding their "diverse views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

. . . .The two-day conference in December brought together well-known Holocaust deniers and others who have said the Nazi genocide has been blown out of proportion.

. . . . Some Iranians outside Iran have avoided publicly condemning the conference because they were concerned about being viewed as pro-Israeli -- one reason the statement avoids taking sides on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said Ladan Boroumand, a historian who began circulating the statement.

An older news report said,

A Conference of the world's most prominent Holocaust deniers opened in Iran yesterday amid international condemnation and protests by dozens of Iranian students, who burned pictures of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and chanted "death to the dictator".

. . . . Welcoming the participants, Manouchehr Mottaki, the foreign minister, said: "The aim of this conference is not to deny or confirm the Holocaust. Its main aim is to create an opportunity for thinkers who cannot express their views freely in Europe about the Holocaust."

It is a shame that at least so far as the Holocaust is concerned, Iranians have freedom of expression whereas many Europeans do not. In 10 of the 27 countries in the European Union, you can be imprisoned for Holocaust revisionism, and Germany is proposing a possible 3-year prison term throughout the EU. In contrast, Iran apparently has no penalty for advocacy of mainstream Holocaust history.