It's deva vu time again ...

[Flashermac]

Iran eyes badges for Jews:

Law would require non-Muslim insignia

 

by Chris Wattie

 

National Post

Friday, May 19, 2006

 

 

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.

 

 

 

http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=11fbf4a8-282a-4d18-954f-546709b1240f&k=32073

[OCgringo]

This guy sure does know how to push the "Hot Buttons" in the west,

 

OC

[chuckwoww]

He sure does...IF that story is true.

 

http://tinyurl.com/zzqgo

 

http://www.940news.com/locale.php?news=2512

 

I thought offering the Europeans 'incentives' to butt out was an amusing touch. Of course Ahmedathingy is playing to a muslim audience mostly the way Chavez plays to Latin America. That Bolton guy looks fit to explode.

[chuckwoww]

Jewish MP denies Iran badge plan

From correspondents in Tehran

20may06

 

IRAN'S only Jewish MP strongly denied reports in a Canadian newspaper overnight that Iran may force non-Muslims to wear coloured badges in public so they can be identified.

 

"This report is a complete fabrication and is totally false," Maurice Motammed said in Tehran. "It is a lie, and the people who invented it wanted to make political gain" by doing so.

 

The National Post newspaper quoted human rights groups as saying that Iran's parliament passed a law this week setting a public dress code and requiring non-Muslims to wear special insignia.

 

Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear a yellow, red or blue strip of cloth, respectively, on the front of their clothes, it said.

 

Mr Motammed said he had been present in parliament when a bill to promote "an Iranian and Islamic style of dress for women" was voted. "In the law, there is no mention of religious minorities," he added.

 

MPs representing Iran's Jewish, Christian and Zoroastrian minorities sit on all parliamentary committees, particularly the cultural one, he said.

 

"This is an insult to the Iranian people and to religious minorities in Iran," he said.

 

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said overnight, during an official visit to Ottawa, that "anything of that kind would be totally repugnant to civilised countries, if it's the case, and something that would just further indicate to me the nature of this regime. It would be appalling."

 

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he had only seen reports about the law but that he would not be surprised by them.

 

"Unfortunately, we have seen enough already from the Iranian regime to suggest that it is very capable of this kind of action," he said.

 

"It think it boggles the mind that any regime on the face of the earth would want to do anything that could remind people of Nazi Germany," he added.

 

"The fact that such a measure could even be contemplated, I think, is absolutely abhorrent."

 

Harper's parliamentary secretary, Jason Kenney, told the House of Commons that Canadian officials were trying to verify the claims.

 

http://tinyurl.com/qfk63

[chuckwoww]

For the record...

 

The National Post has removed the original story from its website and published another one, retracting the initial report.

 

http://hoder.com/weblog/archives/015264.shtml

[buddha]

I wonder if these badges look anything like a bullseye. This is truly offensive.

[chuckwoww]

buddha said:

I wonder if these badges look anything like a bullseye. This is truly offensive.

 

There is no doubt in your mind that such badges exist then?

[bust]

I learnt a long time ago............ "Don't believe the Hype"..............I think NWA sung it.

[chuckwoww]

Public Enemy. Trouble is a lot of people do believe the hype. Look for stories about Iranian mullahs eating Christian babies coming soon to a TV near you.

[Flashermac]

Is this close enough?

 

Canuck PM