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| Iran eyes badges for Jews | |||||
| 2006-05-19 | |||||
| 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."
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."
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. | |||||
| Posted by:Steve |
| #15 Mohammed Taghi Mesbah Yazdi: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Taghi_Mesbah_Yazdi' Sounds like a reasonable fellow. |
| Posted by: Threremp Jetle7420 2006-05-19 16:44 |
| #14 I wonder if they're thinking of leveraging their relationship with North Korea in implementing their dress code. I'm sure, for a few barrels of fuel oil, Kimmie would be happy to put a few unitard experts on the next boatload of missile parts. |
| Posted by: JAB 2006-05-19 15:33 |
| #13 Dan, I am impressed with your ability to follow the various groups, etc. Another example of what you get when you have too much |
| Posted by: Brett 2006-05-19 15:21 |
| #12 Keep in mind that the current Majlis is made up of 156 hardliners, 39 reformists, 31 independents, and 5 designated minority seats, which means that the hardliners have a supra-majority for any whacked-out legislation they want to pass. This is different from the pre-2004 set-up in which the Majlis was dominated by the Islamic Participation Front but was rendered impotent from actually doing anything by the Council of Guardians. I would also note the Abadgaran movement is one of the leading lights within the current Majlis and is Ahmadinejad's party. There's a lot of overlap between them and the Shi'ite supremacist Hojjatieh cult that Ayatollah Mohammed Taghi Mesbah Yazdi (the real power behind Ahmadinejad) runs, which believes that chaos and violence has to be created in order for the 12th Imam to emerge. This apocalypticism distinguishes them from Rafsanjani, Khamenei, and quite possibly Hassan Rohani, all of whom are basically classical tyrants without any eschatological ambitions. |
| Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-05-19 15:03 |
| #11 Haaretz: Some Israeli commentators suggested the story still needed to be fully verified, pointing to the fact that the source of the story was Iranian exiles strongly opposed to the regime ruling their country. We'll see. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2006-05-19 14:21 |
| #10 Harper of Canada and Howard of Australia have spoken about it, denouncing it IF it is true. Apparently the Majlis is looking at legislation to establish a standard Islamic dress code (pretty bizarre on its own) and I suppose in that context the issue of dress for non-muslims has come up. As Harper says, even if this hasnt been passed, the notion of it being considered is pretty bad. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2006-05-19 14:16 |
| #9 Looks like this might be a hoax. Iran report of Holocaust-style badges questioned 2006-05-19 09:06:12 The National Post is sending shockwaves across the country this morning with a report that Iran’s Parliament has passed a law requiring mandatory Holocaust style badges to identify Jews and Christians. But independent reporter Meir Javdanfar, an Israeli Middle East expert who was born and raised in Tehran, says the report 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.” Want to bet your life on that? Now, all the stories so far report the Canadian paper National Post as their source, so we'll see. |
| Posted by: Steve 2006-05-19 14:06 |
| #8 Looks like this might be a hoax. |
| Posted by: JAB 2006-05-19 13:32 |
| #7 Iran eyes badges for Jews unfrikin believable... The asskicking is getting closer every day..I just hope the USA kicks it in a massive way while Israel crushes Hesbolla on the way to Damascus. |
| Posted by: the Twelfth Imami 2006-05-19 11:56 |
| #6 How about they all migrate to the border with either Iraq of Afghanistan ? Claim a piece of land, preferable with an airport. See ya there. |
| Posted by: wxjames 2006-05-19 10:34 |
| #5 Unlike the early to mid 1930s when the Nazis were willing to lets the German Jews emigrate, I'm not sure the mullahs would permit their minorities free emigration at this point. |
| Posted by: Odysseus 2006-05-19 10:30 |
| #4 anywhere but Iran or France or the UK or Venezuela or . . . |
| Posted by: PlanetDan 2006-05-19 10:18 |
| #3 I truly look forward to seeing how my liberal friends and family members seek to frame the discussion on this. I expect it to be something like: ah yes, terrible, terrible. They should get out now. Should they go to Israel? Israel, yes. The US, Europe, Canada, anywhere but Iran. Should they be allowed to move into the West Bank? No - the evil zionist occupiers should not settle the West Bank. |
| Posted by: 2b 2006-05-19 10:13 |
| #2 These laws will not be followed and are unlikely to be enforced. The net effect of such a law is good for our side in that it further erodes respect for the regime and provides a visible daily example of disobedience (wearing normal clothes). I wish they'd make it effective immediately. |
| Posted by: JAB 2006-05-19 09:51 |
| #1 to ahmadinajad: keep digging To Iranian Jews and other non-muslims: Get out, now! |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2006-05-19 09:49 |