US: Iran blocked website educating on Holocaust, criticized FM for calling it 'tragedy'
Iranian media says website created to recognize "fabricated Holocaust narrative" of the "Zionists."
By JPOST.COM STAFFUpdated: JULY 1, 2015 11:00Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei(photo credit: REUTERS)
The Iranian government has continuously blocked a Persian-language website dedicated to educating on the Holocaust, the US Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor said in its 2014 annual report on human rights practices.The website, called the Aladdin Project, is a Paris-based NGO launched in 2009 to preserve the memory of the Holocaust and provide information in Persian on the Shoah and Jewish-Muslim relations.Offering content in Turkish, Arabic, English, French, and Dutch on top of Persian, the project was launched under the sponsorship of UNESCO in order to promote intercultural relations and curtail ignorance, particularly amongst Jews and Muslims.The Iranian Fars News Agency referred to the website in 2013 as the bearing of "international Zionism," created “to recognize the Zionists’ fabricated narrative about the Holocaust, which will enable them to present the creation of [Israel] as both legitimate and necessary."The anti-Semitic stance expressed by the media agency has been continuously reiterated by officials in the Iranian government.Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was criticized by the Islamic Consultative Assembly for having referred to the Holocaust as a "tragedy" on national German television; Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei referred to the Holocaust as an "unknown" on the occasion of the Persian New Year in 2014, questioning the actual occurrence of the Holocaust.The US state report estimates a Jewish population of 8,756 in Iran, with a single representative in the Iranian parliament.Iranian law acknowledges Jews as a minority and allows for the representative in the Islamic Consultative Assembly.
