BICOM

‘Shoah’, the epic nine-hour documentary about the Holocaust of European Jewry, directed by French film-maker Claude Lanzmann, is to be dubbed into Farsi and broadcast in Iran via a satellite channel. The film will be shown in 50-minute segments over two weeks. The project is part of a campaign to promote understanding between Jews and Muslims and to combat the phenomenon of Holocaust denial. TV satellite dishes are illegal in Iran, but enforcement of the ban is said to be only partial, and many households have access to satellite broadcasts.

The dubbing and broadcasting of Shoah is being undertaken by the Aladdin Project, a Paris based groupbacked by the UN educational and cultural organisation Unesco. The film will be broadcast via Pars, a Los Angeles based satellite channel. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly denied the Holocaust, in which six million European Jews were murdered by the Nazis during the Second World War.