Iran's House of Cartoon to hold a Holocaust cartoon competition in response to Charlie Hebdo

The competition about Holocaust denial is in response to Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed

The latest edition of Charlie Hebdo magazine, featuring a cartoon of the Prophet Mohamed on the front cover (Getty Images)

An international cartoon competition has been launched in Iran around the theme of Holocaust denial, reportedly in response to the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed by Charlie Hebdo magazine.

Twelve people were killed when terrorists executed a brutal attack on the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, four of whom were cartoonists.

Iran’s House of Cartoon and the Sarcheshmeh Cultural Complex have organised the competition and are offering a cash prize of $12,000 (£7,960) to the winner, $8,000 (£5,300) for the cartoonist that makes second place and £5,000 (£3,320) for third place, according to the Tehran Times.

The work will go on display at the Palestine Museum of Contemporary Art in Tehran and several other places across the city.

It is the second time the competition has been held; in 2006 the country’s biggest selling newspaper, Hamshahiri, decided to try and find the “cleverest” cartoons satirizing the genocide that saw six million Jews murdered at the hands of the Nazis, reportedly in an attempt to attack the West’s “double standards” over religious satire and free speech, according to the Guardian.

This first competition, which was condemned by Jewish organisations, was launched in response to the Muslim outrage at the publication of the Danish cartoons showing the Prophet Mohammed that year.

Now the second competition to be themed around Holocaust denial by the House of Cartoon has been organised in protest against the Charlie Hebdo cartoons, Masud Shojaei-Tabatabaii, said during a press conference.