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Iran: Jews, Christians Must Wear Badges
In a move reminiscent of the Nazis forcing Jews to wear a Star of David insignia, Iran’s parliament has reportedly passed a law requiring Jews, Christians and other religious minorities to wear color-coded badges to identify them as non-Muslims. The law would also set a dress code for all Iranians, requiring them to wear "standard Islamic garments.” The law, which must be approved by Iran's "Supreme Leader" Ali Khamenei before taking effect, requires Iran's roughly 25,000 Jews to sew a yellow strip of cloth on the front of their clothes. Christians would be forced to wear red badges and Zoroastrians would wear blue cloth, according to Canada’s National Post. "This is reminiscent of the Holocaust," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.
"Iran is moving closer and closer to the ideology of the Nazis."
Story Continues Below Bernie Farber, chief executive of the Canadian Jewish Congress, agrees. "There are some frightening parallels here,” he told the National Post. "We thought this had gone the way of the dodo bird, but clearly in Iran everything old and bad is new again. It's state-sponsored religious discrimination." The new law was drafted two years ago, but lingered in the Iranian parliament until recently when it was revived at the urging of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Ahmadinejad has repeatedly described the Holocaust as a myth and earlier this year announced Iran would host a conference to re-examine the Nazis' "Final Solution." Ali Behroozian, an Iranian exile living in Toronto, said the new law would make religious minorities immediately identifiable and allow Muslims to avoid contact with non-Muslims. Iran's small pockets of Jewish, Christian and other religious minorities "have all been persecuted for a while, but these new dress rules are going to make things worse for them," he told the Post. Australia's Prime Minister John Howard told reporters about the law: "Anything of that kind would be totally repugnant to civilized countries, if it's the case, and something that would just further indicate to me the nature of this regime. It would be appalling.” The Simon Wiesenthal Center has written to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan calling on the international community to bring pressure on Iran to drop the law. "The world should not ignore this," said Rabbi Hier. "The world ignored Hitler for many years. He was dismissed as a demagogue. They said he'd never come to power. "And we were all wrong."
Editor's note:
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Iran Nuclear Push Inside Cover Stories
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