Having participated in the Irancartoon-Hamshari contest, we would like to affirm that we are not anti-semitic and do not agree with the way this contest is being used and manipulated by the Iranian government as a revisionist action, which purpose is to incite Israel and the US.

We are professional cartoonists and have participated in many other international cartoon contests. As artists, we are deeply concerned about various issues. The recent war in the Middle East is one of them. (the heavy attacks by Tsahal (Israel Defense Forces) in Palestine and Lebanon, and the response of the Hezbollah...)

When we participate in a cartoon contest we usually accept its rules. The organizers usually have a professional ethic (they do not change the rules), independence and they respect the ideas of the cartoonists. But unfortunately, we noticed that the Iranian Cartoon House used our trust for the Iranian government's benefit. The Iranian government states: "the Holocaust on Jews never existed". For us this is a historical fact and we want to make clear that we are against all kind of revisionism, antisemitism, racism or xenophobia. We do not at all deny that millions of Jews were horribly murdered by the Nazis.

As cartoonists, our aim is not to revise the historical record. That is the realm of historians. On the other hand we certainly do not deny our responsibility concerning the personal work we created relating to the contest initially titled "What is the Limit of Western Freedom of Expression?". We would like to insist on the fact that our intention was not to mock in a funny way the Holocaust. Our drawings are political and aim to arouse reflection in the people’s mind.

All of us are anti-war proponents, and most of us democratically support the "weakest and oppressed ones" and thus draw in their favor. That's why we supported the Palestinians and Lebanese in the war that Tsahal wages on them. This doesn't mean at all we are "revisionists".

We have not received any information from the Iranian Cartoon House telling us that the intention of this contest was to link the exhibition to a specific governmental action. We strongly protest against such decision without our knowledge.

The participating cartoonist

David Baldinger, Marcin Bondarowicz, Ben Heine, Firuz Kutal...
(more signatures to be applied)