Mohammad-Ali Ramin
Iran: Anti-Semite appointed deputy minister
Mohammad-Ali Ramin is considered most hard-line among Ayatollah regime's Holocaust deniers
A top advisor to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
who is considered the "brains" behind the president's Holocaust denial, was appointed Monday as the Islamic republic's new deputy minister of culture.
Mohammad-Ali Ramin is considered the Ayatollah regime's most hard-line Holocaust denier and anti-Semite.
Ramin, a historian, is seen as responsible for Ahmadinejad's proclamations that the Holocaust is a myth.
In 2006 he served as secretary of an international convention held in Iran that was highly criticized by Western countries for hosting Holocaust deniers from across the globe.
The new deputy minister said during the same year that Adolf Hitler was a Jew who's policies were meant to advance the creation of the State of Israel.
In an interview with an Iranian magazine, Ramin claimed he never denied or confirmed the existence of the Holocaust. "My motto was: Let us investigate the claim that the Holocaust did in fact take place," he said.
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On another occasion, he was quoted as dubbing Jews filthy people who spread lethal disease: "Through history, there were many claims against the Jews. They were the source of lethal disease such as the Plague and typhoid fever, because they are extremely filthy people."
In his current post as deputy minister of culture in charge of communication affairs, Ramin will be able to influence the country's media agenda.
Among his duties, he will have the authority to shut down newspapers that criticize the government and issue licenses to new publications.
It seems Ramin's office already began exercising its authority, closing Monday a publication affiliated with the reformist opposition camp. The said newspaper, "Sarmaya", was shut for criticizing Ahmadinejad's economic policies.
As of today, 32 journalists and bloggers are held in Iranian prisons. In recent months, since the controversial presidential elections, many reformist websites have been shut down and many journalists arrested. Most of them have been freed since.
