2006 Iranian Sumptuary Law Controversy - Early Reaction

Early Reaction

Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, wrote a letter to the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan protesting the alleged new law and urging the United Nations to take action. Rabbi Hier compared it to the Nazi requirement for the Jews to wear yellow badges that "ended with the Holocaust that led to the murder of six million Jews and millions of other innocent civilians." "Given President Ahmadinejad’s record of labeling the Holocaust a myth and calling for the obliteration of the State of Israel," he wrote, "we must urgently take action."

However, since then the passage of such a law has been called into question. "We're looking into it," Annan's spokesperson in New York said, "and we haven't got anything solid."

According to Kayhan, the Iranian foreign ministry called the Canadian Ambassador to Iran for an explanation and apology. Some Iranian journalists and analysts asked the Iranian government to file a case in international court against National Post, as BBC Persian reported.

Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper reacted to the report during a news conference with Australian Prime Minister John Howard. Harper said the Iranian regime is "very capable of this kind of action" and that "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".

On May 21 Iran summoned Canada's ambassador to Tehran to explain the remarks made by Canada's Prime Minister. Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said the Canadian ambassador had been summoned so Iran could object "to the Canadian prime minister's unwise comments" and that "We invite the Canadians to be deeper in their comments. It is not good for an official to make comments based on wrong information".