Iran opens conference questioning the Holocaust

Tehran, Dec 11: Iran opened a conference today to discuss whether Nazis used gas chambers to kill Jews and debate other facts about the Holocaust, drawing condemnation in the West and criticism from Iran's Jewish community.

Jewish rabbis were present at the government-sponsored event ''Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision'' alongside academics from Europe, where some countries have made it a crime to deny the Nazi killing of 6 million Jews from 1933 to 1945.

''The aim of this conference is not to deny or confirm the Holocaust,'' Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said in a welcome address. ''Its main aim is to create an opportunity for thinkers who cannot express their views freely in Europe about the Holocaust.'' The conference was inspired by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who since coming to power in August 2005 has sparked international condemnation with comments referring to the Holocaust as a ''myth'' and calling Israel a ''tumour''.

The event has drawn widespread criticism from Holocaust survivors, Jewish organisations, human rights groups and Western governments.

Among the participants was US academic David Duke, a former Louisiana Republican Representative and Ku Klux Klan leader. He praised Iran for hosting the event.

''There must be freedom of speech, it is scandalous that the Holocaust cannot be discussed freely. It makes people turn a blind eye to Israel's crimes against the Palestinian people.'' ''ENORMOUS LIE'' French writer Georges Thiel, who has been convicted in France for spreading revisionist theories about the mass extermination of Jews, said the Holocaust was ''an enormous lie.'' ''Jewish people have been persecuted, that is true, they have been deported, that is true, but there was no machinery of murder in any camp -- no gas chambers,'' he said.

Sessions at the two-day conference, held at the Foreign Ministry's Institute for Political and International Studies, were to include ''Holocaust: Aftermath and Exploitation'' and ''Demography: Denial or Confirmation?'' Participants included at least five rabbis clad in long black coats and black hats, some wearing badges depicting the Israeli flag crossed out.

''We came here to put the Orthodox Jewish viewpoint regarding the attitude to the Holocaust,'' said British Rabbi Ahron Cohen.

''We certainly say there was a Holocaust, we lived through the Holocaust. But in no way can it be used as a justification for perpetrating unjust acts against the Palestinians.'' The conference has upset Iran's 25,000-strong Jewish community, said Moris Motamed, the sole Jewish representative in Iran's parliament.

''Denying it (the Holocaust) is a huge insult,'' he told Reuters. ''By holding this conference, they (the government) are continuing to insult the Jewish community.'' Many ordinary Iranians admitted to embarrassment about the event, which follows Iran's decision to hold a competition for cartoons about the Holocaust in October.

A former senior government official, who declined to be named, said that hosting the conference was unwise given diplomatic pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme.

''Holding such conferences, at a time when we face political international pressure, just creates more tension and will lead to more pressure. Such conferences should not be held,'' he said.

Reuters