Iran may force badges on Jews, Christians

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TEHRAN, May 19 (UPI) -- Iran's parliament passed a new law this week that would force the country's Jews, Christians and other religious minorities to wear color-coded ID badges.

Iranian expatriates confirmed reports the Iranian parliament, or majlis, has approved a law that would require non-Muslims to adhere to a dress code which mandates they wear "standard Islamic garments," according to Canada's National Post.

The roughly 25,000 Jews living in the Islamic Republic would have to attach a yellow strip of cloth to their clothing, Christians would wear red badges and Zoroastrians would wear blue ones.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader and highest authority, must approve the law for it to take effect.

"This is reminiscent of the Holocaust," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, head of the Simon Weisenthal Center in Los Angeles. "Iran is moving closer and closer to the ideology of the Nazis."

The Weisenthal Center has written to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to call on the international community to pressure Iran into abandoning the measure.

"There's no reason to believe they won't pass this," Hier told the Post. "It will certainly pass unless there's some sort of international outcry over this."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejan has publicly called for Israel to be "wiped off the map." The West believes Tehran is secretly and illegally using its nuclear energy program to develop a weapon, a claim Iran denies.