Evil-ing Up Axis of Evil-y Evildoers

In The Jewish Week, the story behind Amir Taheri's, er, story of Iran's new dress code law. (Via TPM Cafe)

Taheri's column reported that a law passed by Iran's parliament on May 15, "mandates the government to make sure that all Iranians wear 'standard Islamic garments' designed to remove ethnic and class distinctions ... and to eliminate 'the influence of the infidel'."

"It also envisages," stressed Taheri, "separate dress codes for religious minorities, Christians, Jews and Zorastrians, who will have to adopt distinct color schemes to make them identifiable in public. ... They will also have to wear special insignia, known as zonnar, to indicate their non-Islamic faiths."

For Iran's 25,000 Jews: "A yellow strip of cloth in front of their clothes," he wrote, "Christians will be assigned the color red. Zorastrians end up with Persian blue."...

But within hours after the National Post of Canada hit the streets Friday morning, it became clear the story had serious problems. By 7:41 a.m., a Montreal news radio station, AM940, had an interview with Israeli Iran expert Meir Javedanfar of Middle East Economic and Political Analysis debunking it..

"It's absolutely factually incorrect," he told the station. "Nowhere in the law is there any talk of Jews and Christians having to wear different colors. The Iranian people would never stand for it. The Iranian government wouldn't be stupid enough to do it."

Indeed, the law's text and parliamentary debate, available in English from the BBC Service, discloses no provision mandating that any Iranians will have to wear any kind of prescribed dress."