A number of news outlets today, including Canada's National Post, UPI, the Jerusalem Post and YNet News , are reporting that Iran's Parliament has passed a National Uniform Law that obligates non-Muslims to wear specific colored ribbons or bands when they are in public. They say that Iranian expatriates have confirmed that the law has been enacted. However, another news source, 940 Montreal, says that the report is false, quoting independent reporter Meir Javedanfar, an Israeli Middle East expert who was born and raised in Tehran.
The reports on the law's passage say that Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei must still approve it before it goes into effect. Under the law, Jews will have to wear yellow bands, Zoroastrians blue ones, while Christians will be required to wear red bands.
These provisions are part of a broader requirement in the law that all Iranians wear "standard Islamic garments" in order to remove ethnic and class distinctions. These Islamic uniforms will establish "visual equality" for Iranians as they prepare for the return of the Hidden Imam. The identifying ribbons for others are to then prevent Muslims from becoming najis (ritually unclean) by accidentally shaking the hands of non-Muslims in public.
These requirements, of course, remind many of similar mandates in Nazi Germany. Rabbi Marvin Heir, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, said that Iran is getting "closer and closer to the Nazi ideology." He demanded that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan intervene immediately.
UPDATE: On Friday night and Saturday, information coming from Iranian diplomats, and from the Jewish community in Iran (including a Jewish member of parliament), suggests that the bill preliminarily passed by the Iranian parliament does not contain provisions regarding the wearing of distinctive colors by religious minorities. Piecing together the reports, it appears that a bill to promote an Iranian-Islamic style of dress for Muslim women was approved in preliminary form. Sponsors were mainly concerned with recent tendencies among Muslim women to move to light colored clothing during the hot summer months. Apparently there was some discussion in parliament of dress requirements for other religious groups, and language on the matter may have been in earlier drafts of the bill. However the language is not in the preliminary version of the bill that was adopted. (Globe & Mail, National Post, Debka).
