False allegations from Iran: Jews to wear Insignia in public

[couchcommander]

Oh National Post - what a sorry excuse for journalism.

 

[Centurian1985]

The article in canada.com has been <a href=http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=9070ec32-f409-4161-9e96-7bae0436ccc3&k=66789>replaced</a>

Britney, I followed your link and the story seems different from what you posted...not having seen the original post, is this the first article, the second article, or a new one?

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=9070ec32-f409-4161-9e96-7bae0436ccc3&k=66789
Harper says Iran 'capable' of introducing Nazi-like clothing labels Alexander Panetta, Canadian Press
Published: Friday, May 19, 2006 Article tools
OTTAWA (CP) - Prime Minister Stephen Harper was quick to condemn Iran on Friday for an anti-Semitic law that appears not to exist.  Harper seized on a newspaper report that said Iran's hardline government would require Jews and Christians to wear coloured labels in public.  The prime minister couldn't vouch for the accuracy of the newspaper report, but he added that Iran was capable of such actions and compared them to Nazi practices.  "Unfortunately, we've seen enough already from the Iranian regime to suggest that it is very capable of this kind of action," Harper said.  "We've seen a number of things from the Iranian regime that are along these lines . . .
"It boggles the mind that any regime on the face of the Earth would want to do anything that could remind people of Nazi Germany."  But western journalists based in Iran told their Canadian colleagues that they were unaware of any such law.  And Iranian politicians - including a Jewish legislator in Tehran - were infuriated by the Post report, which they called false.  Politician Morris Motamed, one of about 25,000 Jews who live in Iran, called the report a slap in the face to his minority community.  "Such a plan has never been proposed or discussed in parliament," Motamed told the Associated Press.  "Such news, which appeared abroad, is an insult to religious minorities here."  Another Iranian legislator said the newspaper has distorted a bill that he presented to parliament, which calls for more conservative clothing for Muslims.  "It's a sheer lie. The rumours about this are worthless," Emad Afroogh said.  Afroogh's bill seeks to make women dress more traditionally and avoid Western fashions. Minority religious labels have nothing to do with it, he said.  "The bill is not related to minorities. It is only about clothing," he said.  "Please tell them (the West) to check the details of the bill. There is no mention of religious minorities and their clothing in the bill."  The Associated Press reported from Tehran that the draft law, which has received preliminary approval, would discourage women from wearing Western clothing, increase taxes on imported clothes and fund an advertising campaign to encourage citizens to wear Islamic-style garments.  According to existing law, women must cover from head to toe, but many young women, buoyed by social freedoms granted to them during the 1997-2005 rule of former President Mohammad Khatami, ignore the law.  The Post's front-page story, which quoted Iranian expatriates living in Canada, made headlines around the world and was the banner story on the popular Drudge Report website in the U.S.  The story said Iran would require Jews to wear yellow labels on their clothing in an eerie reminder of the buildup to the Holocaust. Adolf Hitler forced Jews to identify themselves with yellow Star of David patches.  Christians would need to wear red labels, and Zoroastrians would be tagged with blue.  The law was still to be approved by Iran's "Supreme Guide," Ali Khamenehi, the Post reported.  Calls to the Post newsroom for comment on the developments around the story was not immediately returned.
Harper called the report a reminder that the international community must prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons.  He made the remarks during a news conference in Gatineau, Que., with the visiting Australian Prime Minister John Howard.  Both men provided lengthy answers to a question about the report.  Harper said he had seen the story and wasn't sure if it was true, before launching into his criticism of the Iranian government.  Howard said he hadn't seen the report. In answering the question, he sprinkled qualifiers into nearly every sentence to underscore uncertainty about the accuracy of the report.  "I haven't previously heard of that," Howard said.  "If that is true I would find that totally repugnant. It obviously echoes the most horrible period of genocide in the world's history - the marking of Jewish people with a mark on their clothing by the Nazis."  Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has previously described the Holocaust as a myth and has called for the destruction of the state of Israel.  Non-Muslims in Afghanistan were required to wear arm bands under the former Taliban regime.  The practice is a throwback to centuries-old rules imposed on non-Muslims living in Islamic states. Under Dhimmi law, non-Muslims were guaranteed security in exchange for paying a tax and wearing special labels on their clothing.  The U.S. government reacted with caution Friday.
The State Department said any such measure would be "despicable" and carry "clear echoes of Germany under Hitler."  U.S. government statistics indicate that 98 per cent of Iranians are Islamic. Other faiths are Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian, and Baha'i.  Department spokesman Sean McCormack said he could not comment further because the precise nature of the proposal is unclear.  "I don't have all the facts," he said.  © The Canadian Press 2006

 

[Britney Spears]

Ok Mr. Recce God.....can you see it now?

Harper says Iran 'capable' of introducing Nazi-like clothing labels Alexander Panetta, Canadian Press
Published: Friday, May 19, 2006 Article tools
OTTAWA (CP) - Prime Minister Stephen Harper was quick to condemn Iran on Friday for an anti-Semitic law that appears not to exist.  Harper seized on a newspaper report that said Iran's hardline government would require Jews and Christians to wear coloured labels in public.  The prime minister couldn't vouch for the accuracy of the newspaper report, but he added that Iran was capable of such actions and compared them to Nazi practices.  "Unfortunately, we've seen enough already from the Iranian regime to suggest that it is very capable of this kind of action," Harper said.  "We've seen a number of things from the Iranian regime that are along these lines . . .
"It boggles the mind that any regime on the face of the Earth would want to do anything that could remind people of Nazi Germany." But western journalists based in Iran told their Canadian colleagues that they were unaware of any such law.  And Iranian politicians - including a Jewish legislator in Tehran - were infuriated by the Post report, which they called false.  Politician Morris Motamed, one of about 25,000 Jews who live in Iran, called the report a slap in the face to his minority community.  "Such a plan has never been proposed or discussed in parliament," Motamed told the Associated Press.  "Such news, which appeared abroad, is an insult to religious minorities here."  Another Iranian legislator said the newspaper has distorted a bill that he presented to parliament, which calls for more conservative clothing for Muslims.  "It's a sheer lie. The rumours about this are worthless," Emad Afroogh said. Afroogh's bill seeks to make women dress more traditionally and avoid Western fashions. Minority religious labels have nothing to do with it, he said.  "The bill is not related to minorities. It is only about clothing," he said.  "Please tell them (the West) to check the details of the bill. There is no mention of religious minorities and their clothing in the bill."  The Associated Press reported from Tehran that the draft law, which has received preliminary approval, would discourage women from wearing Western clothing, increase taxes on imported clothes and fund an advertising campaign to encourage citizens to wear Islamic-style garments.  According to existing law, women must cover from head to toe, but many young women, buoyed by social freedoms granted to them during the 1997-2005 rule of former President Mohammad Khatami, ignore the law.  The Post's front-page story, which quoted Iranian expatriates living in Canada, made headlines around the world and was the banner story on the popular Drudge Report website in the U.S.  The story said Iran would require Jews to wear yellow labels on their clothing in an eerie reminder of the buildup to the Holocaust. Adolf Hitler forced Jews to identify themselves with yellow Star of David patches.  Christians would need to wear red labels, and Zoroastrians would be tagged with blue.  The law was still to be approved by Iran's "Supreme Guide," Ali Khamenehi, the Post reported.  Calls to the Post newsroom for comment on the developments around the story was not immediately returned.
Harper called the report a reminder that the international community must prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons.  He made the remarks during a news conference in Gatineau, Que., with the visiting Australian Prime Minister John Howard.  Both men provided lengthy answers to a question about the report.  Harper said he had seen the story and wasn't sure if it was true, before launching into his criticism of the Iranian government.  Howard said he hadn't seen the report. In answering the question, he sprinkled qualifiers into nearly every sentence to underscore uncertainty about the accuracy of the report.  "I haven't previously heard of that," Howard said.  "If that is true I would find that totally repugnant. It obviously echoes the most horrible period of genocide in the world's history - the marking of Jewish people with a mark on their clothing by the Nazis."  Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has previously described the Holocaust as a myth and has called for the destruction of the state of Israel.  Non-Muslims in Afghanistan were required to wear arm bands under the former Taliban regime.  The practice is a throwback to centuries-old rules imposed on non-Muslims living in Islamic states. Under Dhimmi law, non-Muslims were guaranteed security in exchange for paying a tax and wearing special labels on their clothing.  The U.S. government reacted with caution Friday.
The State Department said any such measure would be "despicable" and carry "clear echoes of Germany under Hitler."  U.S. government statistics indicate that 98 per cent of Iranians are Islamic. Other faiths are Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian, and Baha'i.  Department spokesman Sean McCormack said he could not comment further because the precise nature of the proposal is unclear.  "I don't have all the facts," he said.  © The Canadian Press 2006

 

[Britney Spears]

<a href=http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=398274b5-9210-43e4-ba59-fa24f4c66ad4&k=28534&p=2>Original Article</a>
<a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amir_Taheri>Wiki on the originator of the hoax: Amir Taheri</a>
Not suprisingly, Mr.Taheri is also a frequent contributor to a_majoor's favourite Bush/Neo-CON propaganda screed, The National Review. I have no doubt that this little lie will be parroted as gospel by the Naive American Population™ for years to come.

 

[a_majoor]

I usually cringe when it is time to renew my subscriptions to the Atlantic Monthly or the Economist, since they often feature writers prone to go half cocked as well.

What I find interesting about the subject is how fast people came out in defense of ........Iran. Certainly there was enough rhetoric coming from that nation in the recent past which should be making almost everyone with even a speck of decency cringe. While I was waiting for a confirmatory story, I will admit I didn't find this report to be particularly strange or outside of the already established behavior of the current regime.

Yet the same people, blogs and newspapers which will print the most outragious claims without stopping to verify them if they are detrimental in any way to George W Bush, the United States or the West in general are suddenly a legion of fact checkers when it is a self declared enemy of the West............The story is secondary, it is all about the messenger and the message.

 

[Britney Spears]

Yeah, the old "ask someone who's actually IN Iran" trick. Those snobby anti-semitic Ivory Tower Liberals, I tell you. What's an honest man to believe?

Of course, now I'm the one "coming to Iran's defence". Well, I might as well put on the arm band and moustache and start goose-stepping to "I hate America" eh? 

 

[xenobard]

The first article was perhaps not perfectly objective according to journalism-standards; the author's personal disdain for the Iranian regime seeps through the words a bit.  Nevertheless, no where does it explicitly say that Iran passed the insignia clause of their new Islamic clothing law.  I think the first article is fine.

 

[hoosierdaddy]

I can't believe the amount of posts defending this guy.    Maybe these allegations are false but I would not be surprised if they are lying.  Iran IS an anti-Jewish nation; it is not too difficult to imagine that they would want to wipe Israel off of the map.  If anyone can't see a potentially dangerous situation occurring here then I'll provide the towels so they chould wipe the sand off their heads when they finally pull them out.

 

[couchcommander]

Indeed the situation is dangerous, which is why reports like this are unacceptable.

It wasn't his writing style that is bad or even exactly what he said, it's the fact he didn't bother to even check with another source despite the fact that the one they had was questionable at best. Just as bad, IMO, was the fact that neither did his editors.

Journalists SHOULD, though it seems most don't (left and right wingers included), have an obligation to a certain level of integrity. People trust them (unfoundedly) for their information.

a_majoor - the reason so many people are all of a sudden becoming fact checkers is that big elephant in the room, and it's not because we all secretly love Iran and want america to burn.

How does the saying go again? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me?

As far as western media and middle eastern countries go, my level of face value trust is almost nill.

If hostilities break out between Iran and the west, a conflict which could very well involve a lot of people on this forum, I, personally, would want it to be based upon fact and a desire to better the world - not rumour, speculation, or outright lies.

I think we owe it to those who would die carrying out their orders, and to the innocents who would, truely, be the most affected.

 

[couchcommander]

  I agree, too bad the same journalistic standards aren't used when their are negative articles written about the U.S. that turn out to be totally false!

unfortunate indeed

 

[mdh]

I agree, too bad the same journalistic standards aren't used when their are negative articles written about the U.S. that turn out to be totally false!

+1

 

[JBP]

If this has any truth to it, it sends HUGE warning bells off to me...

Anyone who has read "Shake Hands with the Devil" - about Rowanda, will know why. The people who were being slain in the genocide were all required to have "government" id cards listing thier heritage as either 1 or the other. 1 being the slaughterer and the other the slaughtered...

This was done so that those orchestrating the slaughter knew who they were going after ahead of time. Anyone see a similarity???

 

[Fishbone Jones]

All I see is a lot of hyperboyle over an unsubstantiated rumour.

 

[xenobard]

It wasn't his writing style that is bad or even exactly what he said, it's the fact he didn't bother to even check with another source despite the fact that the one they had was questionable at best. Just as bad, IMO, was the fact that neither did his editors.

Whether or not he needed another source is not the issue.  He never said Iran passed a law making religious minorities wear insignias. 

What happened was that an old law stipulating the dress-code for Shite Muslims was "unblocked".  The claim the author of the article is making is that there is embedded in this old law a proposal for infidels to wear insignias on their clothing identifying to which religion they belonged.  Therefore, the author is perfectly justified in saying:

It [the law] also envisages separate dress codes for religious minorities, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, who will have to adopt distinct colour schemes to make them identifiable in public.

  The word "envisages" is the verb - a rather vague usage for the severity of this topic to say the least, but nevertheless technically accurate.

Later on in the article you'll also notice that he uses only conditional language when referring to how the insignia proposal might affect religious minorities living in Iran. - a lot of ifs, woulds, and wills.  It is clearly in the context of such conditional language that he writes:

Religious minorities would have their own colour 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 colour red. Zoroastrians end up with Persian blue as the colour of their zonnar. It is not clear what will happen to followers of other religions, including Hindus, Bahais and Buddhists, not to mention plain agnostics and atheists, whose very existence is denied by the Islamic Republic.

  The conditional in all this is: if they follow the proposal.

What I find far more interesting is how Iranian officials responded to the article.

They attempt to refute it saying that they never discussed such an idea in parliament:

Iranian Jewish lawmaker Morris Motamed told the AP: "Such a plan has never been proposed or discussed in parliament.

(JP article)
Sure, like they'd ever discuss something like that openly in parliament. If ever they were to draft such a proposal they'd try and slip  the bill through embedded in some obscure sub-paragraph and make sure no members of parliment notice it.

They also tried to refute the claim saying that the proposal isn't in the bill:

"The bill is not related to minorities. It is only about clothing," he said. "Please tell them (in the West) to check the details of the bill.

"(JP Article)  Well, no doubt.  I'm sure now it isn't in the bill.  A Canadian journalist found it, reported it, and now they're having to go back and change it to cover their tracks. Good.

The point is that I honestly can't see the article expressly lying about anything.  The only indication that it does is because some Iranian officials just say so.

Lastly, all this controversy has only served to cast a shade of doubt on the truly important fact of the matter: Iran is going to make its Muslim civilians wear Islamic uniforms, and this will leave minorities of other religions automatically identifiable with or without insignias. 

 

[TCBF]

These people lie every time their lips move.

Tom

 

[couchcommander]

Whether or not he needed another source is not the issue.  He never said Iran passed a law making religious minorities wear insignias. 

To me it's not exactly what was said that's the issue. I mean I could send in an op ed piece:

"Conservative government may be considering eating your babies!"

Oh, you mean their not? Well I used the conditional.

My point being several pronged:

a) a lot of people will completely miss the "may" "would" "if" and read "Conservative government considering eating your babies!", and in fact if you look up and down this thread, that's what a lot of people got out of it

b) once again, trusting a single, very unreputable source for something as potentially explosive as this is irresponsible, and I would say that if this was "Iran has no nukes" or "Iran has lots of nukes".

In the end, the point of the article was to try and paint Iran in a certain light without any real factual basis for it, and on that note I really don't care precisely what semantics he used to ensure he couldn't be sued - that was the intent and that was the message that was conveyed.

IMO anywho.

 

[xenobard]

Conditionals imply a certain level of probability that an event will happen in the future.  Measuring the level of that probability always involves a certain amount of guess-work, in which one may consider any number of variables which only a few will have any direct impact on the actuality of that future event.  It is thus a subjective, intuitive mental process which the individual reader to works out for him or herself.  This is why the author didn't indicate the likelihood of religious minorities actually being forced to wear the insignias.  It would have been just an educated guess on his part; merely his own opinion if he had done so; it wouldn't have been a news story but rather only an editorial. 

As a journalist, his job is to present the facts and let the reader develop his or her own opinion.  It is the reader's responsibility to determine for him or herself the likelihood of religious minorities being forced to wear identifying insignias, not only from this article mind you but also from other knowledge, other news stories, other experts' opinions and arguments.  When people on this forum state their own opinions regarding this news story, some posters have come to believe that that there is indeed a high likelihood of Iran passing and enforcing such a law. Others, on the otherhand dismiss the possibility.  In every case it is a subjective judgement call made each individual reader. 

For it to be an accurate judgement, however, one needs to develop their opinion into a comprehensive fact-based understanding of the broader picture.  The responsible reader will conduct their own personal research into whether or not Iran passed / might try to pass such a law. One might even consider whether or not there exists in Iran a level of anti-semitism that would place a social pressure on religious minorities to in fact 'voluntarily' wear such insignias even without a formal law mandating them to do so.  At the very least, the responsible reader will ask themselves, "Would the Iranian regime actually try to pass a law like this?  Do I know enough about Iran to even have an opinion on this question?  I don't?  Well, I better find out some more about this then."  It is ultimately the reader's responsibility to be as informed as possible about such an important issue.  And, personally, I think most readers are that responsible.

 

[paracowboy]

it is the journalist's responsibility to present FACT in an unbiased manner. Not to spew crap in order to sell advertisements. That is the job of the Fifth Estate. They are, instead the Fifth Column.  : No matter which "side" they may be on, the fact that they have one, and present it, shows they are hardly impartial purveyors of information.

  And, personally, I think most readers are that responsible.

And you would be horribly wrong.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The source article for the National post story

http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/19504

the author stands by his work

http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/19508

http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/19511

 

[TCBF]

"As a journalist, his job is to present the facts and let the reader develop his or her own opinion."

- As a journalist, his job is to do what his boss tells him to do or get fired.

Tom