The National Post is backing down from the story. Here's more.
This is good news. Such social separation portends very bad things, as exemplified throughout history. I am very glad to hear the Iranians are not taking this step.
From what I hear (commenter Barbara Schuddenboom provided a quote and a link, but the link didn't work), the people who initiated this hoax are idiots, who apparently had an agenda against Iran. Well, it makes perfect sense to have disdain for the Iranian regime, but lying is stupid and immoral.
Thanks a lot jerks. You really served yourselves well, huh? Now, next time Ahmadinejad says something particularly evil, fewer people will believe he actually said it.
12 comments:
Thank goodness it's not true.
What has been interesting durting this whole debate are the frequent assertions that Iran's young women will give in to being banned from wearing their fashionable Western-style garments. Do people expect the women of Iran to rise up en masse against the police?
I also came across an article on a site called indybay.org. There they not only expose the story as a fraud, but even go so far as to suggest that it's part of a "black psychological operation" to begin a war with Iran.
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/05/1824373.php
I like the way they also claim that the National Post is owned by Conrad Black- and the newspaper can't possibly be knowledgable about Iran.
It get's better though- they link to an article claiming that even with a handful of nuclear weapons Iran isn't a threat to anyone; and they repeat the lie forwarded by Juan Cole that Ahmadinejad didn't even threaten to wipe Israel off the map; and anyway, the military and the Iranian leadership wouldn't go along with him if he had said that.
http://www.nj.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-0/114806310996680.xml?starledger?prs&coll=1
Can you say denial?
Pastorius,
I read the two stories and can not see why the story is a hoax rather than a misinterpretation or misunderstanding. To call it a hoax is to suggest that the story was made from whole cloth (pun intended). The National Post story suggests that there is some precedent... "Mr. Javdanfar said that not all clauses of the law had been passed through the parliament and said the requirement that Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians wear special insignia might be part of an older version of the Islamic dress law, which was first written two years ago.
Link to Hitchens' refutation of Cole-
http://www.slate.com/id/2140947/
Forgot to include that in my first comment.
The religious minorities are not going to wear badges, but women are going to suffer the worst part of all:
http://actuajihad.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2006/5/21/1973302.html
Islamic dress is going to be enforced and women are going to be even more punished for not wearing it.
Blueslord-Spanish Eowyn
No badges for now, but I won't be surprised to see them show up later. This regime is turning out to be expert at the old bait and switch. We get Ahmadinejad urging that women be allowed back into sports stadiums and the head cop instructing his morals police to stop cutting up women's faces for wearing too much lipstick, and now lo and behold the women of Iran are all going to be stuck into some sort of Iranian Islamic uniform. Which they will be punished for not wearing. And just how will the fascist fashion police know whether someone is not wearing the uniform because they are not Muslim? Oh gee whiz gang, looks like we need for them to wear some sorta badge or something, I mean we can't be beating innocent people up now can we? So if the dress code goes in don't be surprised to see the color badge follow within a few months.
I'm still wondering why ...
1) The Candian Amb from Iran on the first day said ... 'it none of your business'
2)Changed his tune after the uproar
How can people who live there have no idea if a law has been paseed?
Last..remember the TALIBAN did just exactly this.
Simon Weisenthal Center still won't back down ...they say they know the law WAS passed.
HOW?
The underlying problem IS that IRan is a land of autocratic and arbitrary racism and religious bigotry where no one walking around has aclue what is real and what isn't.
Amir Taheri is NOT a fool. He writes frequently for the WSJ, and if he did such a thing deliberately he flushed a long career.
My judgement -- no one has a clue
Starling David Hunter,
I'm totally confused. First, I read that it was, as Epa says above, the Iranian Embassy in Canada who was involved in the story. Then later, it is said that the whole story came from Iranian expatriates.
Maybe I shouldn't call it a hoax, but that's what I was getting from sources that I usually consider reliable.
I give up. Apparently, it isn't true, and it might have been a hoax. It might now have been a hoax. Either way, it is not a good thing for anyone who for this to have been published.
Amir Taheri's article here: http://www.nypost.com/commentary/68850.htm suggests that there would be a sort of uniform dress for Muslims. If so, then so what if Christians, Jews and others don't have to wear badges or specific markings? Their difference in dress would serve the same purpose. Will the Iranian people accept it? Will they have a choice?
Good point, Keith.
I have no idea of the veracity of the ANY SINGLE DETAIL of this sorry mess.
If this is a purposefully perpetrated hoax, then the cause of the freedom of iranians, and OUR FREEDOM has been hurt by short sighted morons.
It seems more likely that this has SOME basis in fact in a nation where what is before a hand picked ulemic legislature, which is in thrall to the arbitrary whims of a mullocracy and govt dominated by the Hojatieh, is really, unknown to those who report on it, and dependent on others who have no clear idea of what is up for vote, passed, or passed and ignored.
Fake but accurate would in this case be DISGUSTING and inexcusable
I DO have a firm idea of HISTORY, however, and will be posting something on this with scans from several places.
It's good if the Jews left in Iran aren't going to be forced to wear dhimmi badges again (yet). That said, what's also good is that, in the wake of the news, it's helped bring to light the history of where the slave badges first originated, which was as early as the caliph Omar II's regime. Stop the ACLU had a topic about the history of the dhimmi badges a few days ago too.
One thing that's missing from this is the reference in some of the stories to the amendment from two years ago- remember the one that started the fuss and was brought up again at the urging of Ahmadinejad.
It seems that the current bill doesn't include this amendment but the question still remains- was it brough up in the Iranian parliament two years ago? Were they actually discussing this back then?
That's kind of been forgotten in the trample of refuting the story- is this detail false too, or was the Iranian parliament considering making Jews and Christians wear badges a couple of years back?
Anyone shed any light on this?
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