This following the big cartoon hoohah in many Muslim dominant countries. I suppose they wouldn't be too concerned here since no holy person is being blasphemed or slandered. Just the "model" Islamic country.
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Iran summons Canadian ambassador in dress-code row
AFP
Wed May 24, 12:38 PM ET
Iran summoned Ottowa's ambassador to Tehran over criticisms made by Canada's premier in response to an inaccurate news report that Iran aimed to force a dress code on non-Muslims.
"Canadians are following a bad trend. We have summoned the Canadian ambassador and objected to the Canadian prime minister's unwise comments," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said according to the ISNA news agency.
"We invite the Canadians to be deeper in their comments. It is not good for an official to make comments based on wrong information," he added.
The report appeared Friday in Canada's National Post newspaper, alleging that Iran had approved a law to force non-Muslims to wear colored badges in public so they could be identified.
Canadian premier Stephen Harper reacted by saying he had only seen reports about the law but that he would not be surprised by them.
"Unfortunately, we have seen enough already from the Iranian regime to suggest that it is very capable of this kind of action," he said.
"It think 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," Harper added.
The newspaper had quoted human rights groups as saying the public dress code would require non-Muslims to wear special insignia.
Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear a yellow, red or blue strip of cloth, respectively, on the front of their clothes, it said.
However, the report was quickly and strongly denied by Iran's only Jewish MP, Maurice Motammed.
"This report is a complete fabrication and is totally false... It is a lie, and the people who invented it wanted to make political gain" by doing so," he told AFP.
Motammed said he had been present in parliament when a bill to promote "an Iranian and Islamic style of dress for women" was voted. "In the law, there is no mention of religious minorities," he added.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.
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National Post apologizes for anti-Iran story
-Reuters
Wed May 24, 12:31 PM ET
A Canadian newspaper apologized on Wednesday for a story that said Iran planned to force Jews and other religious minorities to wear distinctive clothing to distinguish themselves from Muslims.
The conservative National Post ran the story on its front page last Friday along with a large photo from 1944 which showed a Hungarian couple wearing the yellow stars that the Nazis forced Jews to sew to their clothing.
The story, which included tough anti-Iran comments from prominent Jewish groups, was picked up widely by Web sites and by other media.
"Is Iran turning into the new Nazi Germany? Share your opinion online," the paper asked readers last Friday.
But the National Post, a long-time supporter of Israel and critic of Tehran, admitted on Wednesday it had not checked the piece thoroughly enough before running it.
"It is now clear the story is not true," National Post editor-in-chief Douglas Kelly wrote in a long editorial on page 2. "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."
The story was based on a column by Iranian expatriate writer Amir Taheri, who said a law being debated by Iran's parliament would force Jews to sew a yellow strip of cloth to their clothes. Christians would wear a red strip while Zoroastrians would wear a blue one.
Iranian legislators dismissed the story.
The story and the column appeared at a time when the international community is pressuring Tehran over its nuclear program. Iran is also under fire for comments by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in which he doubted the scale of the Holocaust.
Asked about the Post story last Friday, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Iran "is very capable of this kind of action." He added: "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."
A spokesman for Harper said the prime minister had started off his comments with the words "If this is true."
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