Iran dismisses report on dress code for non-Muslims
Posted: 20-05-2006 , 09:07 GMT

Iran has strongly denied a report in a Canadian daily which claims Tehran may force non-Muslims to adopt a particular dress code in public. In a letter to the Canadian daily National Post, the press attache of the Iranian embassy in Ottawa, Hormoz Qahramani, dismissed the article.

The daily, in an article published in its Friday edition, said that "a new dress-code reportedly passed in Iran this past week mandates the government to make sure that religious minorities -- Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians -- will have to adopt distinct colour schemes to make them identifiable in public." The article further stated that "the Iranian government has envisioned that all Iranaians wear standard Islamic garments designed to remove ethnic and class distinctions."
According to the article, under the proposed dress code law, which is still awaiting final approval by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, "Jews will have to wear a yellow band on their exterior in public, (Zoroastrians blue), while Christains will be required to don red ones."
Qahramani's letter noted that such accusations against the Islamic Republic of Iran are part of a vast pre-planned move against Iran by certain states or individuals.

In related developments, the representative of the Jewish minority in the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis), Maurice Motamed, also dismissed the article as a "complete fabrication." Interviewed by a western news agency, he stated the alleged dress requirement was a lie and people who concocted it intended to achieve certain political ends. The publication of such reports outside Iran is an insult to the religious minorities living in Iran, Motamed added.
© 2006 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)