Hat tip to Hugh Hewitt - Iran passed a law concerning a dress code so people are not allowed to wear western clothing. Evidently the dress code part of the story is true but the color coding for religions is questionable.
Canada.com ran a story with the title, "A colour code for Iran's 'infidels'"HotAir.com has posted updates on the story casting doubt on the report.
Original Story (first link) says: - The 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).
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Religious minorities would have their own colour schemes. They will also have to wear special insignia, known as zonnar, to indicate their non-Islamic faiths. Jews would be marked out with a yellow strip of cloth sewn in front of their clothes while Christians will be assigned the colour red. Zoroastrians end up with Persian blue as the colour of their zonnar. It is not clear what will happen to followers of other religions, including Hindus, Bahais and Buddhists, not to mention plain agnostics and atheists, whose very existence is denied by the Islamic Republic.
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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HotAir.com (second link) says: - Israeli politicians are sounding some very dire notes, but as far as I know, no one's independently confirmed this morning's story in the National Post yet. Neither Stephen Harper nor John Howard had heard anything about it until today. And a friend of mine with contacts in Iran says he can't find anyone who thinks it's true. Liberal Catnip links to a report from Montreal radio quoting one expert as saying it's false.
On the other hand, Amer Taheri's story in the post this morning (which accompanied the main article that everyone's linking to) is awfully detailed to have been made up out of whole cloth. Taheri is a credible reporter, and he has oodles of contacts in Iran, so it's hard for me to believe he could have been suckered here. There's certainly no dispute that the Majlis did pass a law this week mandating a national Islamic dress code (which is bad enough); the question is whether that law carries any special requirements for non-Muslims.
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At the time of this blogpost it seems it is still unconfirmed...
prying1 sez: It may be a trial balloon by the nutter that runs Iran designed to instill fear into the hearts of Jews, Christians and Zorastrians. It may have been the Post's sources were guessing what might happen under the new dress code. It may have been put out by expatriates of Iran in an attempt to show the world that Iran is not a fun vacation spot.
I'm going to hold off comment until the truth come out except to say I think the idea is pretty nasty. I'm hoping it is not true.
UPDATE: YNET NEWS dot COM SAYS FALSE - Iranian officials adamantly denied on Saturday reports claiming that the Muslim state was passing a law that would require minority members to identify themselves with various colored armbands ? and, reminiscent of the Holocaust, Jews would be forced to wear yellow badges.
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Representative of Iran?s 25,000 Jews in the nation?s parliament, Maurice Motamed, the only Jewish MP there, told the western press that the report dealt a severe blow to the Jewish image in Iran. ?I was there when they discussed the law, and it was about the dress of Iranian Muslim women. Restrictions for minority or other religions were not mentioned,? Motamed said.
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