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

[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...

[Undertoad]

Taheri's original statement was that the law was passed by one sector of Iranian government. He then went on to speculate what the law would consist of. The righty papers ran with his comment as if it was law and as if the the speculated part was already a part of it. Taheri included too much speculation in his original article but it's the fault of the righty papers for getting it wrong.

This article from Assyrians in Iran summarizes it well. The law is to institute the nature of Islamic dress, not to differentiate non-Muslims.

The logic of the current Iranian Islamic Republic is not to create, first of all, ghettoes and special regulations for dhimmi, non-Muslim citizens who are second class. It is rather the contrary: everyone must follow the Islamic rules -- even veils for women who are visiting, including foreign Ministers -- and contribute to give the impression of "normality" and "universality" of Muslim civilization as defined by the mullahs.

Which it already does; if you are a woman in Iran you will be heavily scrutinized for acceptably Muslim costume. They just want to do it more.

"We have already admonished and 'educated' 32,000 women and 64 men for their clothing and behaviour", said the Tehran police chief, Morteza Talaei. He was speaking on 23 May, giving a first account of the work of the Police Guidance Patrols (religious police) introduced in the Iranian capital. In all, 7,000 shops have been visited, and 190 were fined for violating the ban on selling non "Islamic" clothes and other goods.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

He then went on to speculate what the law would consist of.

Essentially on target, although I'd characterize it differently from "speculation"...he's describing what his sources inside the Majlis told him about what the "consensus" was likely to consist of...at least before the brouhaha.

As I read it, the law actualy reifies ahead of time the "consensus of a committee that consists of members from the Ministry of Islamic Orientation, the Ministry of Commerce and the Cultural Subcommittee of the Islamic Majlis" with final approval by Khamenei...the lawmaking as such is already done.

It's just so convenient having an official state religion, you can incorporate such a pronoucement by reference in law retroactively without having to actually legislate again.

[warch]

Dare to unwrap your womenfolk.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by warch

Dare to unwrap your womenfolk.

I'm on it.

No . The idea of men unwrapping 'their' womenfolk is just as bad as the idea of men wrapping up their womenfolk . Women should be the ones to decide to wrap or unwrap themselves . Full stop .

[Griff]

Not to worry, that is part of what warch was saying. She is sufficiently progressive.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by Buddug

Women should be the ones to decide to wrap or unwrap themselves .

Or each other. Now that's progressive.

Excellent , MaggieL ! I keep meaning to go , and someone makes me laugh again . And I stay , and stay , and stay ....

[Trilby]

Originally Posted by Buddug

Excellent , MaggieL ! I keep meaning to go , and someone makes me laugh again . And I stay , and stay , and stay ....

i believe there are 12-Step Meetings for this now. One day at at time, brother! One day at a time!

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Brianna

i believe there are 12-Step Meetings for this now. One day at at time, brother! One day at a time!

I wish.

My life is more in the two-step / foxtrot line , Brianna .

[wolf]

And that is why you should stay.

After a few days you won't be making 70 posts a day. It will roll back to a more reasonable maintenance level of addiction. Really. We've all been there.