Following are excerpts from a speech by Iranian leader Ali Khamenei, which aired on Channel 1 of the Iranian TV on February 7, 2006.

Ali Khamenei: The freedom of speech about which the [Westerners] talk so much does not permit anyone to doubt the myth about the massacre of the Jews, known as the Holocaust. There is no room for freedom of speech there.

In the European countries, many people - including scientists, researchers, historians, and journalists - are so afraid that they do not dare to express the doubt in their hearts about this issue. Some of them even believe that this issue is an outright lie. They do not dare to say so, because they have seen that anyone who says so is punished, imprisoned, persecuted, and deprived of his rights. At that point, freedom of speech no longer applies. Yet, offending what is holy to one and a half billion Muslims for no reason, without one party having insulted the other - this is permitted. This is classified as freedom of speech.

This is not about the journalist or cartoonist, who was paid by the Zionists to draw this cartoon in order to serve their impure purposes. The problem is that the European Leaders defend this act. They stand behind this vile and stupid act, and consider it to be legitimate and permit is as freedom of speech. That's what this is about.

I assume that a profound Zionist plot is at the core of the matter. They are setting the Muslims and Christians against one another. This is very important for the Zionists - to set the great Muslim community around the world against the Christians, and to set the Christians against the Muslims. That's what this is about. This is the handiwork of the Zionists.

The US president had a slip of the tongue, when, after 9/11, he said that that Crusade had begun. Later, they realized they had made a mistake and should not have said this, and they began to cover it up.

At the time, no one noticed what this Crusade really meant. This Crusade is the war of the Christian peoples against the Muslim peoples. They want to prepare the ground for pitting the peoples one against the other. Both the Muslims and Christians of the world should be very alert, and not become pawns in the hands of these evil politicians.

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Today, I see the Zionist hands are preparing the ground in the Christian countries for this. How come this affront, which was committed two months ago by some newspaper in a certain county, was constantly repeated in countries in central and western Europe? What is the motive for this? Whose hands were behind this?

The Muslim peoples responded at the right place and the right time, as indeed they should have.

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Everyone should know: These demonstrations and this holy rage that the Muslims displayed, at the appropriate time, are not directed against the world's Christians, but against those impure hands that have turned the politicians of the hegemonic world into pawns. They also control the newspapers and many media outlets. These are the unseen hands of the impure Zionists. They are the ones who completely control the American government. The same people operate in Europe too.

They were dealt a blow in Palestine. The Hamas victory gave them the most severe shock, and now they want to make up for this - against the Muslims.

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Wherever free elections are conducted in the Islamic world, the result will be the same. The votes will go to the people who oppose America. This is what lies in the hearts of the people. This is the political inclination of the people. America is ugly and despised. This is not restricted to the Iranian people.

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They contradict themselves. They talk about democracy, but any newly formed democracy is to their disadvantage. This is why they oppose democracies and their outcome. Whenever they can, they interfere [in the elections], and when they cannot, they spread poison from afar.