Iranian newspaper website attacked

February 16, 2006

The website of Hamshahri newspaper was brought down this week in response to an internet attack. Hamshahri Daily is an Iranian newspaper that sponsored a contest to produce cartoons denying the existence of the Holocaust. Service to the website was restored today, after several days offline.

Hamshahri Daily sponsored the cartoon competition on February 8. The contest followed upon the controversy caused by the twelve cartoons published by the Danish newspaper [[w:Jyllands-Posten|. Those twelve cartoons sparked outrage and have led to widespread demonstrations and boycotts.

Last year, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied the existence of the Holocaust, saying "They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and place this above God, religions and the prophets".

The Hamashahri website was the subject of a 'denial-of-service' attack. In a denial-of-service attack, attackers bombard the website with requests for pages until the server overloads.

Hamshahri Daily is owned by the Tehran Municipality, which is allied with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad is the former mayor of Tehran.