TEHRAN – Organizers of the 11th Tehran International Cartoon Biennial has allocated a cash prize of $50,000 for the best cartoon on the Holocaust, the organizers announced on Wednesday.

Three other cartoonists will also receive cash prizes of 12,000, 8,000 and 5,000 dollars respectively, the secretary of the biennial, Masud Shojai-Tabatabai, told the Persian service of MNA.

He added that the competition will be held in June 2016 in Mashhad with cartoonists participating from 50 countries.

“We do not mean to approve or deny the Holocaust, however, the main question is that why is there no permission to talk about the Holocaust despite their (the West) belief in freedom of speech.

“Moreover, why should the oppressed people of Palestine pay the price for the Holocaust? We are also worried about the contemporary holocausts in which a great number of women and children are being killed in Iraq, Yemen and Syria,” he added.

Shojai-Tabatabai also said that a contest focusing on the portrait of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been arranged on the sidelines of the competition.

The Palestine Museum of Contemporary Art will be hosting an exhibition of the works at the time of the competition.

Photo: A cartoon by Moroccan artist Abdellah Derkaoui

RM/YAW
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