Friday, May 19, 2006

Separate dress codes for non-Muslims?

According to Amir Taheri writing in the Canadian National Post a new law mandates the government to make sure that all Iranians wear "standard Islamic garments" designed to remove ethnic and class distinctions reflected in clothing, and to eliminate "the influence of the infidel" on the way Iranians, especially, the young dress.

It also envisages separate dress codes for religious minorities, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, who will have to adopt distinct colour schemes to make them identifiable in public. The new codes would enable Muslims to easily recognize non-Muslims so that they can avoid shaking hands with them by mistake, and thus becoming najis (unclean).

Read article in full

Update: The Canadian National Post (with thanks: Soly) has more:

‘This is reminiscent of the Holocaust,’ said Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. ‘Iran is moving closer and closer to the ideology of the Nazis.’"

"Apparently, this has been confirmed by Iranians now living in Canada: “Iranian expatriates living in Canada yesterday confirmed reports that the Iranian parliament, called the Islamic Majlis, passed a law this week setting a dress code for all Iranians, requiring them to wear almost identical ‘standard Islamic garments.’"

"What are the facts: “The law, which must still be approved by Iran's ‘Supreme Guide’ Ali Khamenehi before being put into effect, also establishes special insignia to be worn by non-Muslims. Iran's roughly 25,000 Jews would have to sew a yellow strip of cloth on the front of their clothes, while Christians would wear red badges and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear blue cloth.”

"Apparently, this law was first recommended two years ago, and has been stuck in the parliament since. However, it has been revived recently by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"The question is: will America’s media report this? At this point six hours after the National Post article was published, a Google news search identified that, other than Canadian and German news sites, no major American media apart from blogs have covered this story. Moreover, if someone from the Simon Wiesenthal Center in L.A. was questioned on this matter, American media can’t be in the dark on this issue."

Update on the update: Iranian-Israeli expert Meir Javedanfar claims the whole story is false:

It's absolutely factually incorrect," he told The New 940 Montreal.
"Nowhere in the law is there any talk of Jews and Christians having to wear different colours. I've checked it with sources both inside Iran and outside."
"The Iranian people would never stand for it. The Iranian government wouldn't be stupid enough to do it."

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The oldest reference to using mandatory articles of clothing to identify and distinguish Jews from the rest of society was under Islam. In 807 CE, Abbassid caliph Haroun al-Raschid ordered all Jews to wear a yellow belt and a tall, cone-like hat. Read more here


2 comments:

  1. Here's a story for your blog:
    http://perpetualrefugee.blogspot.com/2006/05/mi-casa-es-su-casa.html
    Lebanese (non-Jewish) blogger currently visiting Israel. Has an interesting discovery when he starts speaking with his driver in Tel Aviv.

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  2. A very moving story which I shall post soon. Thanks

    ReplyDelete