2006 Iranian sumptuary law controversy

On May 19, 2006, the National Post
National Post
The National Post is a Canadian English-language national newspaper based in Don Mills, a district of Toronto. The paper is owned by Postmedia Network Inc. and is published Mondays through Saturdays...

of Canada published pieces by Amir Taheri

Amir Taheri

Amir Taheri is an Iranian-born conservative author based in Europe. His writings focus on the Middle East affairs and topics related to Islamist terrorism. He gained international fame as the man behind the 2006 Iranian sumptuary law controversy.-Career:Taheri's biography at Benador Associates...

and Chris Wattie

Chris Wattie

Chris Wattie is a Canadian journalist who writes predominantly for Canada's National Post newspaper. Wattie is based in Toronto, Canada.-Education:Mr Chris B Wattie studied at the Royal Roads Military College in 1979, student #14098.-Career:...

alleging that the Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

ian parliament

Majlis of Iran

The National Consultative Assembly of Iran , also called The Iranian Parliament or People's House, is the national legislative body of Iran...

had passed a sumptuary law

Sumptuary law

Sumptuary laws are laws that attempt to regulate habits of consumption. Black's Law Dictionary defines them as "Laws made for the purpose of restraining luxury or extravagance, particularly against inordinate expenditures in the matter of apparel, food, furniture, etc." Traditionally, they were...

mandating a national dress code for all Iranians, Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

and non-Muslim alike.

Both National Post articles went on to say that non-Muslim religious minorities in Iran would be required to wear "special insignia": yellow for Jews, red for Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

s and blue for Zoroastrian. According to the article by Taheri, "[t]he new codes would enable Muslims to easily recognize non-Muslims so that they can avoid shaking hands with them by mistake, and thus becoming najis

Najis

In Islamic law, najis are things or persons regarded as ritually unclean. According to Shi'a Islam, there are two kinds of najis: the essential najis which cannot be cleaned and the unessential najis which become najis while in contact with another najis....

(unclean)." According to both articles, Iranian Muslims would have to wear "standard Islamic garments".

Numerous other sources, including Maurice Motamed

Maurice Motamed

Maurice Motamed or Morris Motamed was elected in 2000 and again in 2004 as a Jewish member of the Iranian Parliament , representing the Jewish community which has by Iran's constitution retained a reserved seat since the Persian Constitution of 1906.- Career :In Parliament, he has been active in...

, the Jewish member of the Iranian parliament and the Iranian Embassy in Canada, refuted the report as untrue. The National Post later retracted Wattie's original article ("Iran eyes badges for Jews: Law would require non-Muslim insignia") and published an article, also by Wattie, to the contrary ("Experts say reports of badges for Jews in Iran is untrue").

Wattie's original article listed only "human rights groups" and "Iranian expatriates living in Canada" as its sources. Amir Taheri

Amir Taheri

made a statement on May 22 saying the National Post story he authored was used by "a number of reports that somehow jumped the gun" and that he stands by the article. Amir states he raised the issue "not as a news story" but rather "as an opinion column".

The Associated Press later refuted the Post report as well, saying that "a draft law moving through parliament encourages Iranians to wear Islamic clothing to protect the country's Muslim identity but does not mention special attire for religious minorities, according to a copy obtained Saturday by The Associated Press." Reuters also reported that "A copy of the bill obtained by Reuters contained no such references. Reuters correspondents who followed the dress code session in parliament as it was broadcast on state radio heard no discussion of proscriptions for religious minorities."

Finally on May 24, 2006, the National Post issues an apology for the untrue reports that the Iranian law would "require Jews and other religious minorities in Iran to wear badges". "It is now clear the story is not true," wrote Editor-in-chief Douglas Kelly in a long editorial appearing on Page 2. "We apologize for the mistake and for the consternation it has caused not just National Post readers, but the broader public who read the story."

Refutation

In Chris Wattie's follow-up article "Experts say reports of badges for Jews in Iran is untrue", the National Post quotes Meir Javdanfar, an Israeli expert on Iran and the Middle East:

Meir Javdanfar, an Israeli expert on Iran and the Middle East who was born and raised in Tehran, said yesterday that he was unable to find any evidence that 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.”

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.

“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.”

...as did the news radio station AM 940 Montreal

CINW (AM)

CINW was an English language Canadian radio station located in Montreal, Quebec.Owned and operated by Corus Quebec, it broadcasted on 940 kHz with a power of 50,000 watts as a clear channel station, using a slightly directional antenna solely for the purpose of improving reception in downtown...

"[I]ndependent reporter Meir Javedanfar, an Israeli Middle East expert who was born and raised in Tehran, says the report is false.
"It's absolutely factually incorrect," he told The New 940 Montreal.
"Nowhere in the law is there any talk of Jews and Christians having to wear different colours. I've checked it with sources both inside Iran and outside."
"The Iranian people would never stand for it. The Iranian government wouldn't be stupid enough to do it."

The National Post also quotes the London-based Iranian commentator Ali Reza Nourizadeh:

"Ali Reza Nourizadeh, an Iranian commentator on political affairs in London, suggested that the requirements for badges or insignia for religious minorities was part of a “secondary motion” introduced in parliament, addressing the changes specific to the attire of people of various religious backgrounds.

Mr. Nourizadeh said that motion was very minor and was far from being passed into law.

That account could not be confirmed."

According to Sam Kermanian, secretary general of the Iranian American Jewish Federation, his contacts in the Iranian Jewish community, including Maurice Motamed

Maurice Motamed

, said that there was no such law. The New York Sun quoted Kermanian as saying that "We have not been able to confirm the accuracy of the report, nonetheless we are pursuing this issue with concern[.]"

According to Agence France-Presse

Agence France-Presse

Agence France-Presse is a French news agency, the oldest one in the world, and one of the three largest with Associated Press and Reuters. It is also the largest French news agency. Currently, its CEO is Emmanuel Hoog and its news director Philippe Massonnet...

"This report is a complete fabrication and is totally false," Maurice Motammed told AFP in Tehran. "It is a lie, and the people who invented it wanted to make political gain" by doing so.
....
Motammed said he had been present in parliament when a bill to promote "an Iranian and Islamic style of dress for women" was voted. "In the law, there is no mention of religious minorities," he added.

MPs representing Iran's Jewish, Christian and Zoroastrian minorities sit on all parliamentary committees, particularly the cultural one, he said.

"This is an insult to the Iranian people and to religious minorities in Iran," he said.

According to the Toronto Star

Toronto Star

The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...

"In a phone interview from Tel Aviv, Israeli commentator and Iranian exile Meir Jawadnafar angrily dismissed the story as "baseless." Toronto-based Iranian blogger Hossein Derkhshan said he could find no evidence of any such plans.

Repeated calls to Post editor-in-chief Doug Kelly went unreturned. The paper's website ran a story headlined "Experts say report of badges ... is untrue.""

Early Reaction

Rabbi

In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...

Marvin Hier

Rabbi Marvin Hier is the dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, its Museum of Tolerance and of Moriah, the Center's film division....

, dean

Dean (education)

In academic administration, a dean is a person with significant authority over a specific academic unit, or over a specific area of concern, or both...

of the Simon Wiesenthal Center

Simon Wiesenthal Center

The Simon Wiesenthal Center , with headquarters in Los Angeles, California, was established in 1977 and named for Simon Wiesenthal, the Nazi hunter. According to its mission statement, it is "an international Jewish human rights organization dedicated to repairing the world one step at a time...

, wrote a letter to the United Nations Secretary-General

United Nations Secretary-General

The Secretary-General of the United Nations is the head of the Secretariat of the United Nations, one of the principal organs of the United Nations. The Secretary-General also acts as the de facto spokesperson and leader of the United Nations....

Kofi Annan

Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...

protesting the new law and urging the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

to take action. Rabbi Hier compared the Iranian law to the Nazi

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

requirement for the Jews to wear yellow badge

Yellow badge

The yellow badge , also referred to as a Jewish badge, was a cloth patch that Jews were ordered to sew on their outer garments in order to mark them as Jews in public. It is intended to be a badge of shame associated with antisemitism...

s that "ended with the Holocaust

The Holocaust

The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...

that led to the murder of six million Jews and millions of other innocent civilians." "Given President Ahmadinejad’s record of labeling the Holocaust a myth and calling for the obliteration of the State of Israel," he wrote, "we must urgently take action."

However, since then the passage of such a law has been called into question. "We're looking into it," Annan's spokesperson in New York said, "and we haven't got anything solid."

According to Kayhan

Kayhan

Kayhan is an influential newspaper in Iran. Directly under the supervision of the Office of the Supreme Leader, it is regarded to be "the most conservative Iranian newspaper."...

, the Iranian foreign ministry called the Canadian Ambassador to Iran for an explanation and apology. Some Iranian journalists and analysts asked the Iranian government to file a case in international court against National Post, as BBC Persian reported.

Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Stephen Harper

Stephen Joseph Harper is the 22nd and current Prime Minister of Canada and leader of the Conservative Party. Harper became prime minister when his party formed a minority government after the 2006 federal election...

reacted to the report during a news conference with Australian Prime Minister John Howard

John Howard

John Winston Howard AC, SSI, was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. He was the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies....

. Harper said the Iranian regime is "very capable of this kind of action" and that "It boggles the mind that any regime on the face of the Earth would want to do anything that could remind people of Nazi Germany".

On May 21 Iran summoned Canada's ambassador to Tehran to explain the remarks made by Canada's Prime Minister. Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said the Canadian ambassador had been summoned so Iran could object "to the Canadian prime minister's unwise comments" and that "We invite the Canadians to be deeper in their comments. It is not good for an official to make comments based on wrong information".

Apology

On May 24, 2006, the National Post apologized for its reports that the Iranian law would "require Jews and other religious minorities in Iran to wear badges". "It is now clear the story is not true," wrote Editor-in-chief Douglas Kelly in a long editorial appearing on Page 2. "We apologize for the mistake and for the consternation it has caused not just National Post readers, but the broader public who read the story."
The apology includes a description of story sources and factors that contributed to the decision to run the story.
Amir Taheri

Amir Taheri

is identified as the initial source for the "story of the alleged badge law". Story confirmation described in the apology included the dean and associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center

Simon Wiesenthal Center

in Los Angeles. The remaining positive confirmation described consists of two Iranian exiles in Canada who said they had heard of the story from contacts in Iran and they believed it to be true. Confirmation was attempted with the Iranian embassy in Ottawa, and the editorial claims that the embassy refused to confirm or deny the allegation (though another National Post article confirms that the Iranian embassy denied the allegation).

The National Post apology also identifies one of the factors that contributed to the decision to run the story as being "previous statements of the Iranian President."

Context of United States-Iran-Israel relations

For in-depth articles, see United States-Iran relations
United States-Iran relations
Political relations between Iran and the United States began in the mid-to-late 19th century. Initially, while Iran was very wary of British and Russian colonial interests during the Great Game, the United States was seen as a more trustworthy Western power, and the Americans Arthur Millspaugh and...

, Iran-Israel relations
Iran-Israel relations
Iran–Israel relations have shifted from close ties between Israel and Iran during the era of the Pahlavi dynasty to hostility since the Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Iran has severed all diplomatic and commercial ties with Israel, and its government does not recognize...

.

Amir Taheri

Amir Taheri

, author of one of the two original National Post

National Post

The National Post is a Canadian English-language national newspaper based in Don Mills, a district of Toronto. The paper is owned by Postmedia Network Inc. and is published Mondays through Saturdays...

articles, was a speaker for Benador Associates, which was a public relations

Public relations

Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....

firm that promoted opinions focusing primarily on United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

foreign policy in the Middle East, particularly those from a neoconservative point of view.

During 2005-2006, there were tensions and threats of military actions against Iran by the United States and Israel. Claims were made that during 2003-2006, the United States violated Iranian territorial sovereignty by overflights of unmanned aerial vehicles, sending US soldiers onto Iranian territory, and sending of members or former members of armed organisations, the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), which the U.S. State Department designates a Foreign Terrorist Organization

U.S. State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations

"Foreign Terrorist Organization" is a designation of non-United States-based organizations declared terrorist by the United States Secretary of State in accordance with section 219 of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act...

, and the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan

Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan

The Party of Free Life of Kurdistan , is a militant Kurdish nationalist group with bases in the mountainous regions of northern Iraq, which has...

(PEJAK), into Iranian territory, allegedly to provoke violent ethnic conflict.

Refutation

Early Reaction

Apology

Context of United States-Iran-Israel relations

See also