"My newspaper is trying to establish a contact with the Iranian newspaper."
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
The Danish editor behind the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad that ignited deadly riots in the Muslim world said Wednesday that he was trying to coordinate with an Iranian paper soliciting cartoons on the Holocaust.
"My newspaper is trying to establish a contact with the Iranian newspaper, and we would run the cartoons the same day as they publish them," Flemming Rose said Wednesday in an interview on CNN's "American Morning."
The Iranian newspaper Hamshahri said Tuesday that it would hold the competition to test whether the West extended the principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide as it did to the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad.
Those cartoons were first published by Rose's newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September. As Muslim protests mounted, numerous European newspapers have reprinted them in recent days in the name of free expression, provoking wider and angrier protests.
Rose, Jyllands-Posten's culture editor told CNN that he came up with the idea after several local cases of self-censorship involving people fearing reprisals from Muslims.
"There was a story out there and we had to cover it," Rose said. "We just chose to cover it in a different way, according to the principal: Don't tell it, show it."
The Iranian newspaper said its contest would be launched Monday and co-sponsored by the House of Caricatures, a Tehran exhibition center for cartoons. The paper and the cartoon center are owned by the Tehran Municipality, which is dominated by allies of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, well known for his opposition to Israel.