A cartoon competition aimed at ridiculing ISIS militants has been launched in Iran by the same organization that held similar events on the theme of Holocaust denial.
“Enthusiastic artists from over 43 countries have submitted their work” to the contest about ISIS’ “crimes,” semi-official Tehran-based House of Cartoons said on its website.
A total of 280 works were selected from 800 submissions and put on display in the exhibit, said the executive editor of the contest Mohammad Habibi, according to state-run news site IRNA.
The winners will be announced on Sunday.
Militias backed by majority Shiite Muslim Iran are battling extremist Sunni ISIS, which has overrun swathes of Iraq and Syria. While tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims have existed for centuries, they have worsened in recent years with largely Sunni Saudi Arabia competing with Iran for regional hegemony.
Related: Iran's Qasem Soleimani Is Guiding Iraqi Forces in Fight Against ISIS
Earlier this year, House of Cartoons held a competition where entrants artists had to address questions like: "If the West says that freedom of speech has no borders then why don't they let historians and experts properly research the Holocaust?" and "Why should the Palestinian people pay for the Holocaust?"
All had to be submitted by April Fools' Day because "April 1 is the day of big lies, and the Holocaust is a big lie that the Zionists invented to suppress the Palestinians," Masoud Shojaei-Tabatabaii, head of House of Cartoons and one of the competition's organizers, said at the time.
