Iran Debates Holocaust

[Christina]

By Parisa HafeziReutersMonday, December 11, 2006; 3:55 AMTEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran opened a conference on Monday to examine the Holocaust and question whether Nazi Germany used gas chambers to kill Jews, 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 event, which Iran has said will question whether gas chambers were actually used against the Jews, has drawn widespread criticism from Holocaust survivors, Jewish organizations, human rights groups and Western governments.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?"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 "tumor."Among the participants was U.S. academic David Duke, a former Louisiana Republican Representative. He praised Iran for hosting the event."There must be freedom of speech, it is scandalous that the Holocaust cannot be discussed freely," Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader told Reuters. "It makes people turn a blind eye to Israel's crimes against the Palestinian people.""ENORMOUS LIE"