Jerusalem Post | Iran denies religious dress code law
Jerusalem Post | Iran denies religious dress code law
Iran denies religious dress code law
Iranian officials on Saturday denied a report published by the Canadian National Post on the previous day, claiming that a new dress-code law was passed in Iran this past week, which mandates the government to make sure that religious minorities – Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians – will have to adopt distinct color schemes to make them identifiable in public.
The National Post later cited experts saying that the idea of religious demarcation had only arisen in discussing a law defining Iranian dress code. The paper quoted an Iranian commentator who said the idea of external identification of non-Muslim minorities was only raised as a secondary motion.
Legislator Emad Afroogh, who sponsored the bill and chairs the parliament’s cultural committee, told The Associated Press on Friday there was no truth to the Canadian newspaper report.
“It’s a sheer lie. The rumors about this are worthless,” he said, explaining that the bill seeks only to make women dress more conservatively and avoid Western fashions. “The bill is not related to minorities. It is only about clothing,” he said. “Please tell them (in the West) to check the details of the bill. There is no mention of religious minorities and their clothing in the bill,” he said.
Iranian Jewish lawmaker Morris Motamed told the AP: “Such a plan has never been proposed or discussed in parliament. Such news, which appeared abroad, is an insult to religious minorities here.”
A diplomat at Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York called the report “completely false.”
“We reject that. It is not true. The minorities in Iran are completely free and are represented in the Iranian parliament,” the diplomat said, speaking anonymously because he was not allowed to make official statements.
Whether approved as law or not, the proposal demanded that Jews will have to wear a yellow band on their exterior in public, while Christians will be required to don red ones.
The new law was drafted during the presidency of Muhammad Khatami in 2004, but was blocked. That blockage, however, has been removed under pressure from current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In addition to the requirements on non-Muslims, the Iranian government has also envisioned that all Muslim Iranians wear “standard Islamic garments” designed to remove ethnic and class distinctions.
The purpose for the law was to prevent Muslims from becoming najis “unclean” by accidentally shaking the hands of non-Muslims in public.
According to Ahmadinejad, reported the National Post, the new Islamic uniforms will establish “visual equality” for Iranians as they prepare for the return of the Hidden Imam.
