Iran eyes badges for Jews http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=11fbf4a8-282a-4d18-954f-546709b1240f
National Post May 19, 2006 Chris Wattie
Human rights groups are raising alarms over a new law passed by the Iranian parliament that would require the country's Jews and Christians to wear coloured badges to identify them and other religious minorities as non-Muslims.
"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."
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."
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.
"There's no reason to believe they won't pass this," said Rabbi Hier. "It will certainly pass unless there's some sort of international outcry over this."
Bernie Farber, the chief executive of the Canadian Jewish Congress, said he was "stunned" by the measure. "We thought this had gone the way of the dodo bird, but clearly in Iran everything old and bad is new again," he said. "It's state-sponsored religious discrimination."
Ali Behroozian, an Iranian exile living in Toronto, said the law could come into force as early as next year.
It would make religious minorities immediately identifiable and allow Muslims to avoid contact with non-Muslims.
Mr. Behroozian said it will make life even more difficult for Iran's small pockets of Jewish, Christian and other religious minorities -- the country is overwhelmingly Shi'ite Muslim. "They have all been persecuted for a while, but these new dress rules are going to make things worse for them," he said.
The new law was drafted two years ago, but was stuck in the Iranian parliament until recently when it was revived at the behest of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
A spokesman for the Iranian Embassy in Ottawa refused to comment on the measures. "This is nothing to do with anything here," said a press secretary who identified himself as Mr. Gharmani.
"We are not here to answer such questions."
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre has written to Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, protesting the Iranian law and calling on the international community to bring pressure on Iran to drop the measure.
"The world should not ignore this," said Rabbi Hier. "The world ignored Hitler for many years -- he was dismissed as a demagogue, they said he'd never come to power -- and we were all wrong."
Mr. Farber said Canada and other nations should take action to isolate Mr. Ahmadinejad in light of the new law, which he called "chilling," and his previous string of anti-Semitic statements.
"There are some very frightening parallels here," he said. "It's time to start considering how we're going to deal with this person."
Mr. Ahmadinejad has repeatedly described the Holocaust as a myth and earlier this year announced Iran would host a conference to re-examine the history of the Nazis' "Final Solution."
He has caused international outrage by publicly calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map."
Iran does not yet have nuclear weapons, but Tehran believed by Western nations to be developing its own nuclear military capability, in defiance of international protocols and peace treaties.
The United States, France and Israel accuse Iran of using a civilian nuclear program to secretly build a weapon. Iran denies this, saying its program is confined to generating electricity.
Then came the retraction:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/717935.html
Canada's National Post retracts report that Iranian Jews will be forced to wear
yellow patches The report emerged as false on Friday evening. Yes, the
parliament in Tehran recently passed a law setting a dress code for all
Iranians, requiring them to wear almost identical "standard Islamic garments"
but it has never passed a decision to mark the country's Jewish citizens
According to Iran expert Meir Javedanfar, Tehran has yet to fix the dress code
for Muslims in the country, let alone for minority ethnic groups.
Question:
Isn't garment-ing "identical standard Islamic garments" all Muslims by LAW, automatically distinguish non Muslims?
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Thanks to Ellen for alerting me to the following artivle, Amir Taheri that stays by the story:
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http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/68837.htm
FOURTH
REICH
IRAN LAW LABELS JEWS
By NILES LATHEM and ANDY SOLTIS
May 20, 2006 -- Concerned U.S. officials and Jewish groups yesterday
demanded answers from Iran after a shocking report that Tehran's radical leaders
passed a Nazi-style law requiring Jews and Christians to wear identifying
badges.Renowned Iranian-affairs expert Amir Taheri reports that the law,
approved by Iran's parliament last week, "envisages separate dress codes for
religious minorities, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, who will have to adopt
distinct color schemes to make them identifiable in public."
Jews would be
forced to wear yellow cloth strips - like the Star of David that Jews were made
to wear in Nazi Germany - while Christians would have to wear red strips, wrote
Taheri, a New York Post columnist.
The purpose is to protect
Muslims from becoming "unclean" by accidentally shaking hands with them, he
said.
World leaders, human rights groups and Jewish and Christian
organizations were stunned.
"I think it has clear echoes of Germany under
Hitler" and the Third Reich, said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
"It would be appalling," Australian Prime Minister John Howard said.
But
there were conflicting accounts about the "national uniform code," which was
first proposed two years ago to curb Iranian citizens' desire to wear
Western-style attire. The law must still be OK'd by the Guardian Council, a
constitutional watchdog.
Iran's only Jewish member of parliament, Morris
Mohammed, called the report of required badges for Jews and Christians "a
complete fabrication."
The law's sponsor, Emad Afroogh, called the claims "a
sheer lie."
Nevertheless, the Simon Wiesenthal Center wrote U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan urging him to investigate. "The world should not
ignore this," Rabbi Marvin Hier, the center's dean, said.
The State
Department is also seeking answers, officials said.
Critics said the reports
fit in with the anti-Semitic rants of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
See the hotair most elaborated update:
http://hotair.com/archives/the-blog/2006/05/19/is-the-iranian-yellow-badges-story-true/ Is the Iranian yellow-badges story true? (bumped)
Technorati - Islamic Hitler Mahmnoud Ahmedinejad Holocaust Good VS Evil 6,000,000 Muslim Hitler Yellow Star Badges for Jews Garments for non Muslims
The ugly part of it all, that although on the surface, this Muslim Hitler looks -- and difinetly sounds -- like a lonely lunatic, he had an immense PR & cheers, applause all across Islamic world.
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