No badges for Jews,
Christians, says Iran

May 20, 2006

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.

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