Regarding Reports That Iran Will Force Religious Minorities To Distinguish Themselves By Clothing

As some may have come to know, a news report was being circulated that stated that majles-e shooraa-ye eslaami (literally, the "Islamic Consultative Assembly," also known as the Majles or Parliament of Iran) passed a law requiring Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians to wear distinctive badges.

We must emphasize that this story is not entirely true. It is true that the Irani Majles passed legislation concerning clothing standards: this law does not contain any provision to distinguish religious minorities. However, during the debate on this legislation such distinguishing provisions were discussed. This is not to say that legislation enacting these provisions cannot be passed later on, so the situation is not all that rosy yet. To say that the Irani Majles did not pass legislation to distinguish minorities would be technically correct, but this would ignore the reality that such legislation may, in fact, be passed.

We must also emphasize that from what it seems, this was not some orchestrated or organized propaganda campaign by neo-conservatives. It seems that Irani exiles mistook the debate as actually amending the legislation, which had not happened. Yet.

In any case, that such debates took place by the Irani Majles ought to be of concern.

innaa naHnu-l-a'lam.