MOSCOW, Feb. 8 (UPI) -- A senior Russian lawmaker has said that Jews are becoming the scapegoats in the Islamic world's reaction to caricatures of Mohammed.
Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the Federation Council, Russia's upper chamber of parliament, said Tuesday that the "cartoon scandal" requires the close attention of the world community, RIA Novosti reported.
"The outrage that the Danish newspaper brought about (by publishing the cartoons in September 2005) is gaining such momentum that the world community must focus on the events," Margelov said.
Margelov cited the recent posting on the Arab European League's Web site of vulgar cartoons of Anne Frank as well as a report that Iranian newspaper Hamshahri was organizing a contest for the best caricature on the Holocaust.
Last year, Margelov said, he had wanted to prepare a report on European anti-Semitism at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, but most PACE members turned it down.
"The caricature (of Anne Frank) convinced me to expand my April PACE report because, unfortunately, manifestations of neo-Nazism are not only happening in Europe," he said.
