Iran to publish Holocaust Cartoons

Iran has said that it will publish the 12 best Holocaust cartoons about the Holocaust to test European freedom of speech.

Now I will make a prediction. No Iranian Embassies will be burnt down in protest. There will be no death threats. There will be no trade boycotts. No Iranians will have to flee countries to save their lives. No-one will be killed in related violence. There will probably be no protests burning the Iranian Flag. There may not be any street protests at all – probably all that will happen is they will be criticised for being tasteless.

In fact this is a good example of the hypocrisy on this issue. Phil Goff is bleating about how we can’t upset Iran and must not publish the cartoons. Yet Iran’s President is a holocaust denier – something which is pretty offensive to most NZers. So how come Iran can insult NZers sensitivities with impunity but NZ has to self-censor cartoons in the name of trade?

Personally I’ll have no problem publishing the Holocaust cartoons that Iran publishes. I’ll probably hate the cartoons but publishing and criticising is what rational people should do.

Also to keep feeding people interesting links, read here about how a UK Cleric (yes UK) has called for the cartoonists who drew the cartoons to be tried and executed under Islamic law. Now someone remind me again how this isn’t a free speech issue.

Richard Chappell has a good post on freedom of speech and the difference between calling for law changes to allow someone to be killed, and vigilante threats of violence or death.