TEHRAN A large number of Iranians have expressed their readiness to assist financially French writer Roger Garaudy who was convicted Friday by a French court to pay a fine of $19,770 for questioning the Holocaust. Garaudy was summoned to appear before the court for publishing the book, Founding Myths of Israeli Policies, in which he argued that calling Nazi crimes a genocide was an exaggeration.

After the verdict was announced against the Muslim intellectual, an Iranian legal expert, Mohammad Reza Jafari told the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) that he was grieved on the action taken by the French court. Jafari told IRNA that he was ready to allocate a part of his income to help the French philosopher. Garaudy trial at a time when Western societies claim themselves to be the supporters of freedom of speech and thought, will remain a stigma in their history.

Ali Mohammad Husseini, a political science student at Tehran University, describing the conviction of Garaudy as the hight of Zionist influence in Western society, said Garaudy's trial has taken place at a time when the West would spare no stone unturned in supporting the apostate Salman Rushdi. As a representative of a group of students in Tehran University, Husseini expressed his readiness to pay a part of Garaudy's fine.

Terming the French writer's conviction as a Zionist move, Zahra Talehi, a high-school teacher in Tehran, said the conviction of the Muslim writer and philosopher is a conviction of freedom of speech and thought in Europe. We witness a period of intellectual tyranny and suppression of thought at the threshold of 21st century which is parallel to the Middle ages, she added.

Allocating her new-year bonus for paying a part of Garaudy's fine, she called on cultural organizations to open a bank account for Muslim contribution to the writer. Garaudy was sentenced by a French court in Paris on the charge of opposition to crimes against human beings and exposing Zionist activities.