New Fashion Statement in Iran

[themary]

This is incredibly fightening and really sad What if you refuse to annouce your religion?

[Hachimitsu]

In time if the topic keeps on going I think I will ask my friend who is from Iran. I can't now since she is getting married on Sunday.(non- arranged marriage to a non-persion and non muslim). I would very much like to say Iranians are quite individual just like everyone else. My friends parents and herself were born in Iran and they are pretty liberal and they go home and visit regularly.

Edit:
I would also like to add there are anti-extremist muslims out there who are saying something. I remember realing in one magazine for mid east expats, that a woman had written a sort of comic about the Iraninan Islamic revolution. (I think she was 8 years old at the time and she tells the story from a childs point of view). In an interview she had said to that just like other countries that have their fringe extremists as a tiny minority, it was the same with Iran. It's just in Iran the tiny minority got control. She had said don't ever ignore the fringe element.

[TheEllipticalDisillusion]

To go back a bit, I agree with Watcher's point about how the West seems to treat the moderate muslims when situations like arise, but that is one major problem with West/islam relations. The moderates, for whatever reason, just don't speak out enough. Those who denounce the ridiculous or dangerous actions of the fringe are not loud enough. I don't see the purpose of keeping a religion stuck in a medieval mindset. Islam used to be the height of cultural quality in terms of fashion, discoveries, advancements, et cetera, but somehow the West soared past.

Remember, the cartoon protests?

That was ridiculous, this (current news story) is scary.

[WampusCat]

It's not true that non-extremist Muslims -- especially those in the U.S. -- are keeping silent. In my newspaper I have published numerous opinion articles from moderate Muslims who are appalled at the jihadists and the dangerous regimes. And I receive far more of these articles than I have space to publish.

The Muslims I know personally are moderate, progressive and more tolerant of women and gays than many of my fellow Christians.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Thank you, Wampus.

[Whistler]

I'm glad you're giving them a forum, Wampus, but it seems that the "big" media are less inclined to do so. Perhaps the extremists make for better sales and better ratings, and thereby bring in bigger profits.

I have certainly seen, over and over, that the big media ignore loving and responsible Christians (the ones who care for orphans, feed the poor, etc.) while flocking like wolves around any Christian kook who makes a fool (or a criminal) of himself.

Perhaps it's just the nature of the media monster.

[Teremia]

This story turns out to have been a fake. On p. 2 of the SF Chronicle this morning there's an article entitled: "Story about Iran spreads like wildfire -- but it's wrong"

The story hit the blog world with a fury. The only trouble was, it was wrong.
The National Post in Canada published a report Friday claiming that Iran's hard-line parliament had passed a law requiring Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians and other non-Muslims to wear a patch of colored cloth on the front of their garments. Quoting 'Iranian expatriates living in Canada,' the Post said the law would require 'Iran's roughly 25,000 Jews . . . to sew a yellow strip of cloth on the front of their clothes, while Christians would wear red badges and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear blue cloth.'
At the State Department, spokesman Sean McCormack said such a measure would be 'despicable' and carry 'clear echoes of Germany under Hitler.'
But the story was untrue.
From the UN to Tehran, Iranian officials -- including the legislator who sponsored a clothing-related bill -- vehemently denied the report. The religious dress code became the dominant story of the day among political bloggers. The Drudge Report even had a link to the National Post story at the top of its page for most of the day. Fox News and MSNBC mentioned it as well.
'Such a plan has never been proposed or discussed in parliament. Such news, which appeared abroad, is an insult to religious minorities here,' Iranian Jewish lawmaker Morris Motamed told the Associated Press.
The propoed bill does affect dress -- but only for women. It discourages women from wearing Western clothing, increases taxes on imported clthes and funds an advertising campaign to encourage citizens to wear Islamic-style garments.

I find this episode disturbing for a number of reasons.

We were too ready to believe anything about Iran -- and this at a time when the world political situation is very delicate, and when it seems that the U.S. Government is turning its attention to Iran as bad guy du jour.

Iran is a problem, certainly. I don't like seeing nuclear programs burgeon around the world, and I have a very strong preference for places where women have roughly equal rights.

HOWEVER, the Iranian *people* have been more kindly disposed towards the United States than people of certain other Middle Eastern countries, and we should act with care, so as not to make absolute enemies of yet another group of people.

What's more, we ourselves have created the world situation in which suddenly Iran has way too much power for any sense of balance in the Middle East. We took out Iraq.

What's more, we're the guys with nuclear weapons, AND we've shown through our behavior that the way to make the US back off is to possess nuclear weapons (North Korea, Pakistan). We've created a huge incentive for "rogue nations" to develop the bomb.

Most important of all for this thread: we have to be cautious! Notice how the State Dept. spokesman picked up this false rumor and ran with it? We have to be very very cautious! We don't want to find ourselves in a war with Iran because we were all too gullible AGAIN and bought rumors because they kind of sounded sort of plausible.

Anyway, I am not at ease in my mind right now.

p.s. I typed in that story above out of my paper (& felt very old-fashioned as I did so) because I couldn't find the Chronicle article online, but here's the same news from The Seattle Times

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Thank you, Teremia.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

While we are on the subject of Iran and the issue of weapons of mass destruction has come up, I want to say a few words about that. I don't dispute that Iran's weapons program poses a threat. The idea of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a government that has shown itself to be as irresponsible as Iran's current government is pretty scary. I believe that for some time Iran has posed a much greater WMD threat then Iraq did. However, the malfeasance (yes, malfeasance) of the Bush administration has greatly complicated dealing with this threat, in at least two different ways.

The first is the "cry wolf" syndrome. Now that it has become abundantly clear that the claims regarding Iraq's WMD were wildly inaccurate (and at least some cases deliberately falsified) the credibility of the Bush administration regarding Iran's WMD program is very low.

But even worse, the political games played by the Bush administration, led by Vice President Cheney and "Bush Brain" Karl Rove has significantly damaged our ability to assess Iran's WMD capability. Up until 2003, the CIA had an undercover agent in place who had built up significant contacts in Iran and was making significant progress towards accurately assessing that country's WMD program. The name of that agent: Valery Plame Wilson. That network was essentially eliminated when her identity was disclosed in the course of administration efforts to discredit her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had revealed just how mendacious the Bush administration was being regarding Iraq.

Meanwhile, even while we complain about the discriminatory policies of other countries, our President and the dominant party in Congress is trying for the first time in American's history to write discrimination into our Constitution.

Before we spend too much time and energy worrying about the governments of other countries, I suggest that we Americans concentrate on getting our own house in order.

[axordil]

I had been wondering why there wasn't more confirmation of the story in other news outlets, as opposed to simple dissemination...it seemed to have come out of the National Post via Iranian exiles and nowhere else.

Given the current regime there, I don't fault anyone for buying it. But as it has been noted, everyone needs to be very careful about ALL the news from and about Iran right now, good, bad or indifferent.

Whistler--

I think the news media does a generally poor job of reporting on religion in general. Then again, it's not the only thing on that particular list, not by a long shot...it does raise an interesting question, though. Is the role of the news media to give us a picture of reality, or just pass on stories? I think to a large extent it comes down to format. Non-daily print and long-format media news have (in theory) the best chance to absorb information and context, while (generally) daily papers and TV news are much more limited in scope. You're rarely going to see in-depth stories on anything at 5, 6 and 10...protests and idiots (not always the same ) are a lot easier to fit in a 45 second slot, or a single-column story with a picture.

And of course, generally protesters and idiots SEEK publicity...

[Faramond]

The first time in history discrimination will be written in the Constitution? Are you joking? The right to slavery was written into the original Constitution!

[Hachimitsu]

Thanks Teremia for the report on the article. I got pretty suspicious when the website for Benador associates were pretty vague about what they do exactly and they don't list the "awards" they claimed the author had won in his profile. I found the Wikipedia article on them an eye opener.

(This is why I avoid reading the National Post.)

[Whistler]

Well, I apologize to the board if I posted too quickly. To be frank, I was so stunned I wasn't thinking.

Note to self: Think.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The first time in history discrimination will be written in the Constitution? Are you joking? The right to slavery was written into the original Constitution!

I stand corrected. Although actually the words "slaves" and "slavery" were not mentioned in the constitution. Article I, Section 2 does state that all persons other then "free persons" (and "Indians not taxed") would count as 3/5 of a person in determining representation in the House of Representatives. Section 9 of Article I prohibits Congress from banning "the migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit until 1808. And Article IV, section 2 states "No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due" meaning slaves needed to be returned to their owners.

But all this rather supports my point. The Constitution was amended to eliminate these vestiges of legal discrimination. What I should have said is that the Constitution has never been amended to allow discrimination before (unless you include prohibition, but that was repealed).

[Hachimitsu]

No No i think it's it's very very fortunate that you posted that, it really highlights to me that we need to be careful about what news we need to hear. I actually discussed it with my sis and she forced me to look up the background on the authors. She and you made we think and I think it's important that I do that from now on concerning news especiialy about Iran.

(Other people hwere madae me think too, it's just I am addressing whistler right now )

I think we all can get a very valuble lesson from this. I did.

[Whistler]

You are too kind, Wilma.

Certainly we have touched upon some interesting topics here, and I hope we'll continue to discuss them regardless.

[Hachimitsu]

THe CBC news just did a story on the correction that the National post had to print and the (international) fallout caused by the article. I'll see if I can find something online.

Edit: Do'h I can't find the newscast anymore, they update prettyt quickly. Any where was a sort of retraction printed in the National post. I'll go look it up.

2nd Edit
I found .. something. To read the whole thing a person has to be a subscriber

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news ... 262b49a4f7

If anyone could find the whole thing (with out any add ons), that would be cool.

There there was another article they printed earlier..

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news ... 91af82abb3

I'll see If I can find the full article.

3rd Edit: I found the full article!!! I found it on a blog which contains at least one swear word so click with caution.

Link: http://bornwithatail.blogspot.com/2006_ ... chive.html

Scroll down to May 24.

Our mistake: Note to readers

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

Apparently because of the initial article the Canadian Ambassador to Iran was called.

This retraction seems to be putting in a lot of excuses for their irresponsible journalism.