Free Republic

The United States on Friday issued a strong condemnation of the reported proposal of a new law in Iran that, if passed, would require non-Muslims to visually distinguish themselves from other Iranians by wearing colored bands on their clothing. US State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said any such measure would be "despicable" and carry "clear echoes of Germany under Hitler." A new dress-code law 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 color schemes to make them identifiable in public, the...

Jewish MP denies Iran badge plan From correspondents in Tehran 20may06 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. The National Post newspaper quoted human rights groups as saying that Iran's parliament passed a law this week setting a public dress code and requiring non-Muslims to wear...

A new dress-code law 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 Canadian National Post reported on Friday. Under the new law, which still awaits final approval from Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Jews will have to wear a yellow band on their exterior in public, while Christians will be required to don red ones. If the law is approved, it is scheduled to go into effect at the beginning of...

Experts say report of badges for Jews in Iran is untrue Several experts are casting doubt on reports that Iran had passed a law requiring the country’s Jews and other religious minorities to wear coloured badges identifying them as non-Muslims. The Iranian embassy in Otttawa also denied the Iranian government had passed such a law. A news story and column by Iranian-born analyst Amir Taheri in yesterday’s National Post reported that the Iranian parliament had passed a sweeping new law this week outlining proper dress for Iran’s majority Muslims, including an order for Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians to wear special...

Iran may force badges on Jews, Christians TEHRAN, May 19 (UPI) -- Iran's parliament passed a new law this week that would force the country's Jews, Christians and other religious minorities to wear color-coded ID badges. Iranian expatriates confirmed reports the Iranian parliament, or majlis, has approved a law that would require non-Muslims to adhere to a dress code which mandates they wear "standard Islamic garments," according to Canada's National Post. The roughly 25,000 Jews living in the Islamic Republic would have to attach a yellow strip of cloth to their clothing, Christians would wear red badges and Zoroastrians would...

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says news reports that Iran could require Jews and Christians to wear coloured labels in public might be true. He says Iran's hardline Islamist government has proven itself capable of such extreme actions. He called a law allegedly being considered in Iran a mind-boggling reminder of Nazi German practices. He says reports that Iran is considering a law to force Jews to wear yellow labels, and Christians red ones, are a reminder to the world that Iran must never gain nuclear weapons. He made the remarks at a news conference with Australian Prime Minister John Howard....

Human rights groups are raising alarms over a new law passed by the Iranian parliament that would require the country's Jews and Christians to wear coloured badges to identify them and other religious minorities as non-Muslims. "This is reminiscent of the Holocaust," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. "Iran is moving closer and closer to the ideology of the Nazis." Iranian expatriates living in Canada yesterday confirmed reports that the Iranian parliament, called the Islamic Majlis, passed a law this week setting a dress code for all Iranians, requiring them to wear...

Human rights groups are raising alarms over a new law passed by the Iranian parliament that would require the country's Jews and Christians to wear coloured badges to identify them and other religious minorities as non-Muslims. "This is reminiscent of the Holocaust," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. "Iran is moving closer and closer to the ideology of the Nazis." Iranian expatriates living in Canada yesterday confirmed reports that the Iranian parliament, called the Islamic Majlis, passed a law this week setting a dress code for all Iranians, requiring them to wear...

The head of Iran's Jewish community has written a letter of complaint to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about the leader's repeated insistence that the Holocaust never happened. "How is it possible to ignore all of the undeniable evidence existing for the exile and massacre of the Jews in Europe during World War II?" said Haroun Yashayaei in the letter, which was written two weeks ago but faxed to news agencies only yesterday. "Challenging one of the most obvious and saddening events of 20th-century humanity has created astonishment among the people of the world and spread fear and anxiety among the...

Iran Jews express Holocaust shock By Sadeq Saba BBC News The Iranian president is accused of ignorance and political prejudice The chairman of Iran's Jewish Council has strongly criticised the country's hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for saying the Holocaust was a myth. In a letter to the president, Haroun Yashayaei said the leader's remarks had shocked the international community and caused fear in Iran's Jewish community. Mr Yashayaei described the Holocaust as one of the most obvious and sad events in the 20th Century. Six million Jews were killed in Nazi persecution during World War II. This is the first...

TEHRAN - The Jewish women in the back rows of the synagogue wear long garments in the traditional Iranian style, but instead of chadors, their heads are covered with cheerful, flowered scarves. The boys in their skullcaps, with Hebrew prayer books tucked under their arms, scamper down the aisles to grab the best spots near the lush, turquoise Persian carpet of the altar. This is Friday night, Shabbat - Iranian style, and the synagogue in an affluent neighborhood of North Tehran is filled to capacity with more than 400 worshipers. It is one of the many paradoxes of the Islamic...

Ishak can't wait to get "home" to Teheran. After he immigrated to Israel two years ago, said the short man with dark circles under his eyes, his life became increasingly miserable. Standing and fretting inside his empty shop on Jerusalem's Rehov Ben-Yehuda, Ishak (not his real name), a 51-year-old Jewish-Iranian who is in Israel now only for a final visit, said the jewelry shop he opened here never sold anything, the renters to whom he leased a property did not pay and his heart began to fail him from the stress of monthly mortgage payments and no income. So 10...

When Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa took office on July 1, he could have handed out thank-yous to groups all over the city for his Election Day drubbing of incumbent Mayor James Hahn. Jews, in all their local permutations, were a big part of Villaraigosa’s victory: Orthodox Jews, Valley Jews, Westside liberal Jews — and also the politically emerging community of Iranian Jews. “The Iranian Jewish community is very much a part of this city,” said David Nahai, a Century City attorney. “What happens to Los Angeles happens to us and so we have a deeply vested interest in the outcome of...

World media reports suggest that Israel or America, or both, might be preparing a preemptive strike against Iran to stop it from developing weapons of mass destruction. If that happens, what will be the fate of Iran's 30,000 Jews? Iran's malevolent intentions toward Israel are not in dispute. But an Israeli attack on Iran could set the Muslim world afire, and Jews living in Muslim countries could become the targets of angry Muslim mobs. Jews in Turkey, for instance, are in a generally good situation. Their government is not openly hostile toward them and there is no state-sponsored call to...

TEHRAN - Iran's only Jewish lawmaker yesterday criticized state television programs for ridiculing Judaism and warned that policies pursued by the hard-line faction that controls state media were forcing more Jews to emigrate. Maurice Motamed told an open session of Iran's parliament that anti-Jewish policies pursued by the powerful hard-line faction have depressed Iran's Jewish community, the largest in the Middle East outside Israel. "Insulting Jews and attributing false material to them in television series during the past 12 years has not only caused irritation among the Jewish community, it has also caused many Jews to leave," Motamed said, in...

oshe Katsav, President Israel (1945 - ) Born in Iran in 1945, Moshe Katsav came to Israel with his parents in 1951. The eldest of eight children, he grew up in the new immigrant tent camp (and later development town) of Kiryat Malachi. He graduated from the Ben-Shemen Agricultural School and Beer Tuvia. Following Israel Defense Forces (IDF) military service, he received a degree in Economics and History from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Katsav served as president of Young B'nai Brith in Kiryat Malachi and wrote for the "Yediot Aharonot" daily. He was chairman of the Likud student council...

After meeting with Likud MK Gila Gamliel and Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz last week, Austrian Interior Minister Ernst Strasser promised to use his leverage in Iran to help the Jews of Iran make their way to Israel. Perhaps the only country permitted by the Iranian government to issue exit visas, Austria has until now assisted the immigration of both Christians and Jews from Iran to Austria, where the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), a non-Zionist American NGO has helped the incoming population get to their final destination in North America. According to Johaanes Rauch, spokesperson for Strasser, the problem with...

After meeting with Likud MK Gila Gamliel and Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz last week, Austrian Interior Minister Ernst Strasser promised to use his leverage in Iran to help the Jews of Iran make their way to Israel. Perhaps the only country permitted by the Iranian government to issue exit visas, Austria has until now assisted the immigration of both Christians and Jews from Iran to Austria, where the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), a non-Zionist American NGO has helped the incoming population get to their final destination in North America. According to Johaanes Rauch, spokesperson for Strasser, the problem with...

TOM TUGEND Jewish Telegraphic Agency LOS ANGELES -- It's not often that a Jewish audience breaks into a standing ovation for an Iranian political figure. But as Reza Pahlavi, son of the former shah of Iran, took the stage at the Simon Wiesenthal Center last week, the overflow audience of Iranian Jews rose waving Iranian, American and Israeli flags, broke into rhythmic clapping and shouted in Persian, "Long Live the Shah" and "We Love You." The heir to the deposed Iranian monarchy had come to the heartland of America's Iranian diaspora to pursue his 20-year quest to rid Iran of...

Afghanistan seizes illegal images of Prophet Reuters 11 Mar 2003 KABUL, March 11 (Reuters) - Afghanistan's Chief Justice accused Iranian Jews on Tuesday of insulting Islam by producing images of the Prophet Mohammed after they were found on illegal sale in shops in Kabul. Mawlavi Fazl Hadi Shinwari told Reuters hundreds of images of the prophet had been seized in police raids after being discovered on sale in contravention of Sharia, or Islamic law. Islamic law considers such images to be blasphemous. Shinwari said he had informed President Hamid Karzai. "An immediate ban has been put in place on...