Iran, which is notorious for its cartoon contests mocking the Holocaust, has come up with another provocative contest – featuring cartoons mocking U.S. President Donald Trump.
The contest, called the “International Trumpism Cartoon and Caricature Contest”, was held on Monday, reported Haaretz. Iranian cartoonist Hadi Asadi won the first prize. His cartoon shows Trump wearing a jacket made of dollar notes while drooling on books.
Asadi's work was one of thousands of cartoons that competed in the new competition. Artists from over 70 countries submitted over 1,600 works to the competition, which organizers said sought to acknowledge Trump since “he represents the real image of America.”
“Trump’s behavior clearly sets out Iran’s reasons to distrust the U.S., consequently, we decided to use art’s capacity for displaying the behavior,” the competition's director, Ali-Asghar Jafari, was quoted as having said.
Another organizer is Masud Shojaei-Tabatabai, who was also among the leaders of the country's International Holocaust Cartoon Contest.
“This contest considers Trump as a symbol of U.S. capitalism and hegemony that many intellectuals compare with Nazism,” Shojaei-Tabatabai said, according to Haaretz.
Indeed, one of the cartoons showed Trump corralled within a swastika-shaped wall.
Others focused on the U.S. president's social media habits, with Twitter featuring in a number of works.
There have been tensions between Iran and Trump, who has been highly critical of the nuclear deal signed between Iran and the West, saying it was “disastrous” and pledging to annul it.
During a recent trip to Saudi Arabia, Iran's regional rival, Trump gave a speech in which he criticized Iran as a major sponsor of terrorism.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani mocked those comments, saying that Trump's summit with Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia was "just a show with no practical or political value of any kind" and then added, "You can't solve terrorism just by giving your people's money to a superpower."