ICC NOTE: Bishai’s commentary on the new law passed in Iran is right on. How different is this persecution from the manner in which Hitler began targeting the Jewish population? Another article that speaks to this recent development is found in the Toronto Sun.
Iran ‘s Crazy Colour-Coded Catastrophe
By Sally Bishai
The American Daily (05/21/2006) First the Holocaust, then Egypt ‘s National ID Cards, and now.. a calamity of colourful (and cataclysmic) proportions.
Well, consider this: To begin with, Hitler made Jews wear a Star of David, to easier identify them for his devious, experimental and genocidal purposes.
Thenand I have no idea just when it startedthe Egyptian government put Christian and Muslim on National ID Cards, making it that much easier for systematic and legalised discrimination against Christians to take place in Egypt (check out a satirical take on The Way Things Are in Egypt if you dont believe me, at http://sallybishai.blogspot.com/2006/05/what-are-copts-doing-in-egypt.html ).
It was only this week, actually, that the laughable and not-so-new notion of religious identifiers in a less-than-tolerant atmosphere was brought up again, this time in Iran, where their Parliament passed a new law that would force the country’s Jews, Christians and other religious minorities to wear color-coded ID badges…[including] a yellow strip of cloth to their [Jews] clothing, as well as the fact that Christians would wear red badges and Zoroastrians would wear blue ones, while all people got to don what the law dubbed standard Islamic garments, which I guess means a black tent with a panel of additional fabric that covers the face.
