Posted on 05/20/2006 6:19:31 PM PDT by Man50D
The Iranian Embassy in Ottawa is denying a story published yesterday by Canada's National Post that Tehran has legislated color-coded badges for Jews, Christians and other religious minorities, and several experts on the workings of the Islamic regime have concurred, saying evidence of such a scheme cannot be found.
According to the reports, Jews were to be required to wear yellow cloth strips, called zonar, while Christians were to wear red and Zoroastrians blue.
The initial information for the reports came from Iranian expatriates living in Canada. The Simon Wiesenthal Center reported that it had confirmed the story that the legislation had passed and still awaited the approval by Iran's "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenehi before it became law.
A spokesman for the Iranian Embassy in Ottawa "categorically" rejected the story, saying, "These kinds of slanderous accusations are part of a smear campaign against Iran by vested interests, which needs to be denounced at every step."
The story that Iran was planning to employ a tactic used by the Nazis, who required Jews in Germany to wear yellow stars during the 1930s, caused outrage and concern around the world. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is on record denying the Holocaust and saying Israel should be wiped off the map. As WorldNetDaily has reported, Iran has threatened to launch attacks against the Jewish state in the event of any strikes on its nuclear facilities.
Leonid Nevzlin, chairman of the board of trustees of Beth Hatefutsoth, the Museum of the Jewish Diaspora in Tel Aviv, responded to the story with a call to Jews of the world to wear yellow badges to identify themselves with Iranian Jews.
"Iran is implementing Hitler's methods and constitutes a threat to the free world," Nevzlin said.
Despite Iran's past, heated rhetoric, several experts on the regime have raised doubts about the National Post story.
Sam Kermanian, of the U.S.-based Iranian-American Jewish Federation, said he was in contact with members of the Jewish community in Iran – including one who was a member of the Iranian parliament – and all denied the legislation had been passed.
The parliament is currently debating a dress code for Muslims "to preserve and strengthen Iranian-Islamic culture and identity, consolidate and promote national clothing designs and guide the manufacturing and marketing of clothes, on the basis of domestic forms and designs, as well as to encourage the public to refrain from choosing and spending on foreign designs not appropriate to the Iranian culture and identity."
The Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry is to "promote patterns of Iranian clothing and clothing from different regions of Iran." The draft law on dress provides for seasonal clothing exhibitions for the public and manufacturers as well as tariffs on foreign wear "to set the foundation for growth of domestic clothing."
According to Kermanian, the subject of "what to do with religious minorities" came up during debates prior to passage of the dress code law.
"It is possible that some ideas might have been thrown around," Kermanian told the National Post. "But to the best of my knowledge the final version of the law does not demand any identifying marks by the religious minority groups."
Kermanian noted that, badges or not, Jews in Iran were subject to discrimination. "If they sell food they have to identify themselves and their shops as non-Muslim," he said.
Ali Reza Nourizadeh, an Iranian commentator on political affairs in London, suggested that badges or insignia for religious minorities may have been part of a "secondary motion," addressing the changes specific to the attire of people of various religious backgrounds. If so, he said, the motion was minor and had not been included in the approved legislation.
Meir Javdanfar, an Israeli expert on Iran and the Middle East who was born and raised in Tehran, said he could uncover no evidence such a law had been passed.
"None of my sources in Iran have heard of this," he said. "I don't know where this comes from."
Javdanfar suggested requirements for non-Muslims to identify themselves with special badges might have been part of an older Islamic dress code, written two years ago, but that parliament had not passed all the clauses it considered.
"In any case, there is no way that they could have forced Iranian Jews to wear this," he added. "The Iranian people would never stand for it."
Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, said he still believes the original reports, although he admits he has no independent confirmation.
"We know that the national uniform law was passed and that certain colors were selected for Jews and other minorities," he said. "If the Iranian government is going to pass such a law then they are not likely to be forthcoming about what they are doing."
According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, several commentators in that country greeted the story with skepticism, noting that its source was Iranian exiles strongly opposed to the regime.
Nothing to see here folks... move along! /sarc
I can hardly believe that there are Jews living in Iran today.Same mentality that kept some in Germany right until the end?
But what about bar codes?
Must have been a trial balloon that landed with a big thud.
Dangit, I did it again. Why can't I use there and their right? I swear to god I know the difference. I wrote an entire 5 page english paper last week and I switched them everytime in there too. Yea! I got one right at least.
"Badges?...we don't need no steenkin' badges."
We here in the west should never forget that the communist student groups were the ones to support these crazed mullahs in 1979/80. A cultural uniform is the marxist ideal, finally stamping out the bourgeois idealism of the individual.
That`s what I was thinking...I mean for Petes sake, my neighbors play music loud 2 or 3 nights a month and I`m outta there, I must have moved 5 times in the past 2 years..never mind having a bunch of freggin` Arab Neo Nazis demanding I wear a badge. Freggin` blow me with that one! They want the sand dunes to themselves, they can have them. Here`s a pail and shovel, make all the sand castles you want Mohammed.
Sadly, you are probably not too far off.
So later, they'll just kind of, you know, do it.
"Put this on. Haven't you heard of the secondary motion?"
The word dhimmi is derived from the noun dhimma, which in its turn comes from a verb dhamma meaning 'to blame, find blameworthy, criticize, find fault with, censure'. The term dhimma thus in its original meaning denotes an obligation or liability arising from a fault, blame or debt owed to another and a dhimmi is someone who bears this obligation or liability. The idea that a defeated person is liable for a debt to their conqueror is consistent with an ancient principle of Arab customary law. According to an ancient Arab concept ... the victor in a fight who spares the life of an enemy taken prisoner does actually do the latter a good deed. This "good deed" involves however ... simultaneously, a legal claim to a "reward".
The concept of dhimmi dates back to the 7th century. Status was originally only made available to non-Muslims who were people of the book(i.e.Jews and Christians), but was later extended to include Zorostrians, Mandeans, and ultimately also Hindus.
The 11th-century Shafi'i scholar Al-Mawardi, in his treatise on the principles of Islamic governance, divided the conditions attached to ‘’dhimma’’ on top of the requirement to pay tribute into compulsory and desirable. One of the desirable conditions included a requirement to wear distinctive clothing. For example, "different colored shoes, one white the other black"; for males, badges such as an "ape for a Jew and a pig for a Christian: for women yellow veils." The distinctive dress shows the Muslim that the dhimmi is to be treated as an inferior - not to stand up for them or shake their hands, not to give them Muslim charity.
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