TEHRAN, 22 May 2006 — Iran’s new dress code bill is aimed at encouraging designers to work on imaginative Islamic clothing, lawmakers said yesterday, dismissing a report that the bill sought special outfits for religious minorities.
Canada’s National Post on Friday reported the draft bill approved last week would force Jews, Christians and other religious minorities such as Zoroastrians to wear color-coded clothes to distinguish them from Muslims.
A copy of the bill obtained by Reuters contained no such references. Reuters correspondents who followed the dress code session in Parliament as it was broadcast on state radio heard no discussion of proscriptions for religious minorities.
Senior parliamentarian Mohsen Yahyavi described the Canadian report as “completely false.”
“The bill aims to support those designers that produce clothes that are more compatible with Islam, but there will be no ban on the wearing of other designs,” he told Reuters.
Iran’s Jewish MP Moris Motamed also agreed the bill made no attempt to force special garments on the minorities.
“There is no single word in the bill about a special design or color for the religious minority groups,” he said.
“Our enemies seek to create tension among the religious minorities with such news and to exploit the situation to their benefit,” he added.
Religious minorities are largely tolerated in Iran, have freedom of worship and some exemptions from the Islamic Republic’s strict rules in the private spaces of their own communities.
