New dress code in Iran: Jews and Christians must wear badges

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by MrVisible

Or was it just a reflexive "you made a typo, neener neener" response?

Ah...so you actually knew he was invited to speak on Iraq, not Iran, and accidently typed the name of the wrong country, as opposed to being misled by what Molly Ivans' wrote?

As for "strategy", what I actually said was "it's interesting to read original sources"...which was apparently was the Taheri opinion piece (rather than the retracted Canadian article), which, far from being retracted, Taheri say's he's standing by. The other "original source" of course is the Snow briefing vs. the Ivans screed on "Truthdig".

I say it's interesting to read them. And I'm standing by that.

[MrVisible]

Originally Posted by MaggieL

Ah...so you actually knew he was invited to speak on Iraq, not Iran, and accidently typed the name of the wrong country, as opposed to being misled by what Molly Ivans' wrote?

Yes. Do you think it's wise to have someone who authored an inflammatory article based on a complete fabrication being consulted as an "expert" by the White house?

As for "strategy", what I actually said was "it's interesting to read original sources"...which was apparently was the Taheri opinion piece (rather than the retracted Canadian article),...

The Taheri opinion piece you linked to, dated May 20th, came out the day after the National Post story. The National Post has removed the original article from its website, so we cannot compare them, but the text seems to be substantively similar.

...which, far from being retracted, Taheri say's he's standing by.

Let's get a little perspective on what that means exactly, shall we? Here's the retraction published by the National Post.

Last Friday, the National Post ran a story prominently on the front page
alleging that the Iranian parliament had passed a law that, if enacted, would
require Jews and other religious minorities in Iran to wear badges that would
identify them as such in public. It is now clear the story is not true. Given
the seriousness of the error, I felt it necessary to explain to our readers how
this happened.

The story of the alleged badge law first came to us in the form of a column by
Amir Taheri. Mr. Taheri, an Iranian author and journalist, has written widely on
Iran for many major publications. In his column, Mr. Taheri wrote at length
about the new law, the main purpose of which is to establish an appropriate
dress code for Muslims. Mr. Taheri went on to say that under the law, "Religious
minorities would have their own colour schemes. They will also have to wear
special insignia, known as zonnar, to indicate their non-Islamic faith."

This extraordinary allegation caught our attention, of course. The idea that
Iran might impose such a law did not seem out of the question given that its
President has denied the Holocaust and threatened to "wipe Israel off the map."
We tried to contact Mr. Taheri, but he was in transit and unreachable.

The editor who was dealing with Mr. Taheri's column wrote to Rabbi Abraham
Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. The
Wiesenthal Center is an international Jewish human rights organization that
keeps a close watch on issues affecting the treatment of Jews around the world,
and maintains contacts in many countries, including Iran. Asked about the
specific allegation that Iran had passed a law requiring religious minorities to
identify themselves, Rabbi Cooper replied by e-mail that the story was
"absolutely true." When a reporter spoke to Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the
Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, a short while later, Rabbi Hier said the story
was true and added that the organization had sent a letter to UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan asking him to take up the matter. (Rabbi Hier has
since said that, contrary to the understanding of the reporter, the Wiesenthal
Center had not independently confirmed Mr. Taheri's allegation.)

The reporter also spoke with two Iranian exiles in Canada -- Ali Behroozian in
Toronto and Shahram Golestaneh in Ottawa. Both said that they had heard the the
story of the badges from their contacts in Iran and they believed it to be true.

Canada's Foreign Affairs Department did not respond to questions about the issue
until after deadline, and then only to say they were looking into the matter.
After several calls to the Iranian embassy in Ottawa, the reporter reached
Hormoz Ghahremani, a spokesman for the embassy. Mr. Ghahremani's response to the
allegation was that he did not answer such questions.

We now had four sources -- Mr. Taheri, the Wiesenthal Center and two Iranian
exiles in Canada -- telling us that according to their sources the Iranian law
appeared to include provisions for compelling religious minorities to identify
themselves in public. Iranian authorities in Canada had not denied the story.
Given the sources, and given the previous statements of the Iranian President,
we felt confident the story was true and decided to publish it.

The reaction was immediate and distressing. Several experts whom the reporter
had tried unsuccessfully to contact the day before called to say the story was
not true. The Iranian embassy put out a statement late in the day doing what it
had failed to do the day before -- unequivocally deny such a law had been
passed.

The reporter continued to try to determine whether there was any truth to the
story. Some sources said there had been some peripheral discussion in the
Iranian parliament of identifying clothing for minority religions, but it became
clear that the dress code bill, which was introduced on May 14 and has not yet
been passed into law, does not include such provisions.

Mr. Taheri, who had written the column that sparked the story, was again
unreachable on Friday. He has since put out a statement saying the National Post
and others "jumped the gun" in our characterization of his column. He says he
was only saying the provisions affecting minorities might happen at some point.
All of the people who read the column on the first day took it to mean the
measure was part of a law that had been passed. Mr. Taheri maintains the zonnar,
or badges, could still be put in effect when the dress code law is implemented.

On Saturday, the National Post ran another front-page story above the fold with
the Iranian denial and the comments of the experts casting doubts on the
original story.

It is corporate policy for all of CanWest's media holdings to face up to their
mistakes in an honest, open fashion. It is also the right thing to do
journalistically.

We acknowledge that on this story, we did not exercise sufficient caution and
skepticism, and we did not check with enough sources. We should have pushed the
sources we did have for more corroboration of the information they were giving
us. That is not to say that we ignored basic journalistic practices or that we
rushed this story into print with no thought as to the consequences. But given
the seriousness of the allegations, more was required.

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. We take this
incident very seriously, and we are examining our procedures to try to ensure
such an error does not happen again.

Douglas Kelly,

Editor-in-Chief

National Post

You'll note that Mr. Taheri's idea of 'standing by his story' goes like this:

He has since put out a statement saying the National Post
and others "jumped the gun" in our characterization of his column. He says he
was only saying the provisions affecting minorities might happen at some point.
All of the people who read the column on the first day took it to mean the
measure was part of a law that had been passed.

Originally Posted by MaggieL

I say it's interesting to read them. And I'm standing by that.

Meh. I prefer the truth. I've had it up to here with liars recently.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by MrVisible

You'll note that Mr. Taheri's idea of 'standing by his story' goes like this:

No, that's not his statement about it at all. (Did you read it?)
You are instead quoting the Post retracting what they wrote about what Tahiri wrote. We have Tahiri's article, and his statement after the brouhaha. If you want to call him a liar, wouldn't it be better to use his words rather than those of The Post, the Majalis or Molly Ivans?

Pardon me, but your "typo" story severely strains my credulity...I find you reading Ivans and parroting her line (rather than reading the original Snow briefing) much more plausible. On the other hand, Happy Monkey was able to actually quote the Snow briefing and still get it wrong, so...

[MrVisible]

Originally Posted by MaggieL

No, that's not his statement about it at all. (Did you read it?)
You are instead quoting the Post retracting what they wrote about what Tahiri wrote.

Yes, I read it. But when I'm trying to establish someone's veracity, I don't just check back with them to see if they still say they're right. I check the facts. And the facts just don't bear out Tahiri's story.

But that doesn't seem to be your style. Tell you what, here you go. I'm telling you the truth. I'm telling you the truth. I'm telling you the truth. There, now you have to believe me, if you use the same criteria you're applying to Tahiri.

Pardon me, but your "typo" story severely strains my credulity...

I forgive you. Now, do you really think that someone who lies about the situation in Iran should be consulted by the White House as an expert on the situation in Iraq? Ever think about answering that particular question, or are do you just plan to dance around it some more?

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by MrVisible

I forgive you. Now, do you really think that someone who lies about the situation in Iran should be consulted by the White House as an expert on the situation in Iraq?

Not a germane question until you show me where Taheri lied. His words, not third-hand commentary. Until then it's question-begging (in the petitio principii sense).

[MrVisible]

Originally Posted by MaggieL

Not a germane question until you show me where Taheri lied. His words, not third-hand commentary.

Sigh.

From the article you posted as the original source, which appears under Amir Taheri's byline:

WHILE Iran's economy appears to be heading for recession, one sector may have some reason for optimism. That sector is the garment industry and the reason for its optimism is a law passed by the Islamic Majlis (parliament) on Monday.

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).
...
Religious minorities would have their own color schemes. They will also have to wear special insignia, known as zonnar, to indicate their non-Islamic faiths. Jews would be marked out with a yellow strip of cloth sewn in front of their clothes, while Christians will be assigned the color red. Zoroastrians end up with Persian blue as the color of their zonnar.

At no point in the article is there any indication that any of this is Taheri's speculation. It's reported as established fact.

And who would be more knowledgeable about, and more outraged by the passage of such a law than the Jewish representative on the Iranian parliament, Maurice Motamed? What does he have to say about this?

From Agence France-Press:

"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.

The paper that printed the original story issued a retraction and an apology. There is no evidence for the claims stated in the article. There is considerable evidence against it.

That counts as a lie in my book.

So, is the man who fabricated this story a reliable and competent expert, worthy of being consulted by the White House?

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by MrVisible

And who would be more knowledgeable about, and more outraged by the passage of such a law than the Jewish representative on the Iranian parliament, Maurice Motamed?

Well,

I bet being leader of the Jewish caucus in the Iranian parliment is an interesting job, now that Iran's on recent record for "wiping Israel off the map". I wouldn't expect a member of the Iranian parliment to publically support a negative article by an expat who's been editor of the big newspaper in town under the previous regime. I understand the Vichy government expressed a high opinion of the Nazis, too.

The article points out that the law had passed, and that the official clothing rules would be codified (with comfortable deniability in the event of a ruckus like what actually ensued) in the "consensus" of the aformentioned committee. He then descibes what he'd found out about the likely content of the "consensus".

The Canadian paper withdrew their publishing of the article, including the headline and wrapup comment/teaser that they wrote.

Should the White House listen to input from ex-pat editor of a major Iranian national newspaper on matters of Middle East policy? Yes, I think they should. Should they consider the motivations of people they listen to when evaluating what they say? Absolutely.

Would Molly Ivans meet your "worthiness" test for a White House meeting? By your standards for "lying"?

How about Arafat?

[wolf]

So, if we would nuke Iran, would that make it Shiites of Glass, or would it be The Light of a Thousand Sunnis?