Draft law says Iranians should wear Islamic clothing

TEHRAN, Iran -- A draft law moving through parliament encourages Iranians to wear Islamic clothing to protect the country's Muslim identity but does not mention special attire for religious minorities, according to a copy obtained Saturday by The Associated Press.

The 13-article bill received preliminary approval a week ago.

On Friday, the Canadian newspaper The National Post, quoting Iranian exiles, said the law would force Jews, Christians and other religious minorities to wear special patches of colored cloth to distinguish them from Muslims.

The report brought immediate criticism from the United States.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said any such measure would be "despicable" and carry "clear echoes of Germany under Hitler" -- referring to the yellow Star of David that Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust.

He would not comment further, saying he did not "have all the facts" on the bill.

The Post said Friday that the law required Jews to wear a yellow strip of cloth sewn into their clothes, Christians to have a red one and Zoroastrians to wear blue. The copy of the bill received by AP did not mention minorities.

On Saturday, the Post Web site ran an article casting doubt on its earlier report. It cited the Iranian Embassy in Ottawa as denying the report and quoted Iranian exiles saying the law did not appear to have such measures.

The Web site did not post a correction of the original article. The Post did not immediately respond to e-mails asking for comment and Amir Taheri, an Iranian expert who wrote the original article, could not immediately be reached for comment.

"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 said.

The bill raised fears among women that the government led by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is planning to crack down on social freedoms won in Iran during the previous pro-reform government.

Lawrequire women to wear a chador -- meaning a head scarf to cover their hair and a long overcoat to hide their shapes.

But in the past decade, enforcement has grown lax, and women commonly wear scarves that leave almost their entire heads bare and short, formfitting jackets instead of overcoats.

The bill makes no specific mention of women but says it aims to "encourage the public to abstain from choosing clothes that aren't appropriate to the culture of Iran," according to the copy received from the parliament's press office.

It tasks the Culture Ministry and state media to promote Iranian styles of dress and to discourage clothing "that does not conform with Iranian-Islamic culture."

It also would give economic incentives to producers making Islamic-style clothing and impose tariffs on clothing imports.

The bill does not call for police or other bodies to enforce stricter styles of dress for women. In the past, religious police and paramilitary militias would castigate women in the streets if any of their hair was showing or if their clothes were too revealing, though such enforcement has been rarer in recent years.

Ardalan Parvin, a women's activist and journalist in Iran, said women will not accept it if Iran try to step up enforcement now.

"It is clear that this plan is designed to fight the Western dress code adopted by so many of Iran's youth," she said. "But I don't think that they can just eliminate the Western dress altogether. It's going to be very difficult."

The law does not define the Islamic-Iranian style that it will encourage or directly impose a particular uniform, as the National Post article suggested.