Holocaust film Shoah to be shown on satellite TV

BBC, A landmark documentary about the Holocaust is to be shown on a satellite TV channel which broadcasts into Iran.

Claude Lanzmann's 1985 film Shoah is to be dubbed into Farsi and shown from Monday on the private Pars channel, which broadcasts from Los Angeles.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has described the Holocaust as a myth and has called for an end to the Israeli state.

Satellite TV dishes are illegal in Iran but enforcement is patchy.

The film will be shown in 50-minute segments over two weeks.
'Lack of information'

The broadcast is being organised by the Aladdin Project, a Paris-based group which seeks to increase understanding between Muslims and Jews. The Aladdin Project is backed by the UN educational and cultural organisation, Unesco.

Mr Ahmadinejad has repeatedly denied the Holocaust, in which six million European Jews were murdered by the Nazis during the Second World War.

In September 2009, he described the Holocaust as "a lie based on an unprovable and mythical claim".

"The starting point for Aladdin was the total lack of sources of information available in the Arab and Muslim world when faced with [Holocaust] denial," Anne-Marie Revcolevschi, Aladdin's president, told the AFP news agency.

As part of the same initiative, Shoah has also been translated into Arabic and Turkish.

It will be shown at the Istanbul film festival next month and on the Turkish state TV channel TRT a week later.