Criticized worldwide as a "meeting of Holocaust deniers", the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust opened in Tehran.
Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial is the negationist and antisemitic claim that Nazi Germany and its collaborators did not commit genocide against European Jews during World War II, ignoring overwhelming historical evidence to the contrary. Theories assert that the genocide of Jews is a fabrication or exaggeration. Holocaust denial includes making one or more of the following false claims: that Nazi Germany's "Final Solution" was aimed only at deporting Jews from the territory of the Third Reich and did not include their extermination; that Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas chambers for the mass murder of Jews; that the actual number of Jews murdered is significantly lower than the accepted figure of approximately six million; and that the Holocaust is a hoax perpetrated by the Allies, Jews, or the Soviet Union.
International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust
The "International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust" was a two-day meeting in Tehran, Iran, that began on 11 December 2006. It was hosted by the Iranian government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki stated that it had been organized "neither to deny nor prove the Holocaust... [but] to provide an appropriate scientific atmosphere for scholars to offer their opinions in freedom about a historical issue." The meeting took place shortly after Iran's International Holocaust Cartoon Competition, which was sponsored by Tehran's government-owned newspaper Hamshahri. Most of the invitees were far-right activists, several of whom had faced legal charges or imprisonment in Western countries for their advocacy of neo-Nazism, Holocaust denial, or Islamic extremism.
Tehran
Tehran is the capital and largest city of Iran. It is also the capital of Tehran province and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District. With a population of around 9.8 million in the city, and 16.8 million in the metropolitan area, Tehran is the most populous city in Iran and Western Asia, the second-largest metropolitan area in the Middle East after Cairo, and the 24th-most-populous metropolitan area in the world. Greater Tehran includes several municipalities, including Karaj, Eslamshahr, Shahriar, Qods, Malard, Golestan, Pakdasht, Qarchak, Nasimshahr, Parand, Pardis, Andisheh and Fardis.