IRAN OKS 'NAZI' SOCIAL FABRIC By AMIR TAHER

The law mandates the government to make sure that all Iranians wear "standard Islamic garments" designed to remove ethnic and class distinctions reflected in clothing, and to eliminate "the influence of the infidel" on the way Iranians, especially the young, dress.

It also envisages separate dress codes for religious minorities, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, who will have to adopt distinct color schemes to make them identifiable in public. The new codes would enable Muslims to instantly recognize non-Muslims so that they can avoid shaking hands with them by mistake, and thus becoming najis" (unclean).

Jewish MP denies Iran badge plan

From correspondents in Tehran

May 20, 2006

IRAN'S only Jewish MP strongly denied reports in a Canadian newspaper overnight that Iran may force non-Muslims to wear coloured badges in public so they can be identified.

"This report is a complete fabrication and is totally false," Maurice Motammed said in Tehran. "It is a lie, and the people who invented it wanted to make political gain" by doing so. (More)

Even if the badging portion of the new dress regulations are not true, here is some historical re-counting of how this would not be unusual.

An ethos of infidel-hatred, including paroxysms of annihilationist fanaticism, has pervaded Persian/Iranian society, almost without interruption (i.e., the two major exceptions being Sunni Afghan rule from 1725-1794, and Pahlavi reign, with its Pre-Islamic revivalist efforts, from 1925-1979), since the founding of the Shi’ite theocracy in 1502 under Shah Ismail, through its present Khomeini-inspired restoration, since 1979. (More)

May 23, 2006 — EDITORS' NOTE: The Associated Press and others have challenged Amir Taheri's account (published in The Post on Saturday) of the proposed new Iranian dress code, noting that the law does not specify badges for religious minorities. Below is his reply.  I STAND BY MY COLUMN