When you're in a hole, stop digging

I thought the story of the supposed Iranian dress code for Jews and Christians would die the death, given the evidence that it was untrue.

But it seems the story is too good to give up on, either for some of its defenders, or for those who see the original reporting of it as evidence of a conspiracy by "the neo-conservatives" to fit Iran up for future nuking by the west.

Amir Taheri has now published his own defence of the original story he published on 19th May.

Actually, I don't think he's done himself a great deal of good with it. He now states that

my column was used as the basis for a number of reports that somehow jumped the gun.

and that

I have been informed of the ideas under discussion thanks to my
sources in Tehran, including three members of the Majlis who had tried to block the bill since it was first drafted in 2004.
I do not know which of these ideas or any will be eventually adopted.

Well, if that's the case, how come his original article included these very definitive statements that

The law mandates the government to make sure that all Iranians wear "standard Islamic garments" designed to remove ethnic and class distinctions reflected in clothing, and to eliminate "the influence of the infidel" on the way Iranians, especially, the young dress. It also envisages separate dress codes for religious minorities, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, who will have to adopt distinct colour schemes to make them identifiable in public…..

Religious minorities would have their own colour schemes. They will also have to wear special insignia, known as zonnar, to indicate their non-Islamic faiths. Jews would be marked out with a yellow strip of cloth sewn in front of their clothes while Christians will be assigned the colour red. Zoroastrians end up with Persian blue as the colour of their zonnar

The new law imposes a total ban on wearing neckties and bow-ties which are regarded as "symbols of the Cross." Will Iranian Christians be allowed to wear them, nevertheless? No one knows.

This all sounds very much as if Amir Taheri, whose work I usually find well researched and insightful, is resorting to an Andrew Gilligan defence:

BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan made a final plea for understanding in a late submission to Lord Hutton’s inquiry.

Reporters should be given “a margin for error” when dealing with matters of clear public interest, particularly on political issues, he argued.

And given that first report, how can Amir Taheri be claiming that other reporters "somehow jumped the gun"?

Surely the first person to lead the jumping was Amir Taheri himself?

Comments

[David Sucher]

Yes I read his second report too and it certainly does further matters at all except to diminish his credibiliity.

[Sunny]

Heh, well said Judy.