An Iranian girl in Isfahan. (AP)

Tehran, May 20 (AP): Iran’s conservative-dominated parliament is debating a draft law that would discourage women from wearing western clothing, increase taxes on imported clothes and fund an advertising campaign to encourage citizens to wear Islamic-style garments.

A draft received preliminary approval last Sunday and lawmakers debated it this week, but the parliament has not passed the bill. If adopted, the measure would require approval by the Guardian Council, a constitutional watchdog.

The measure has provoked concern outside Iran after a Canadian newspaper reported it included provisions that would require Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians and other non-Muslims to wear a patch of coloured cloth on the front of their garments.

Canadian newspaper The National Post, quoting “Iranian expatriates living in Canada”, said the law would require “Iran’s roughly 25,000 Jews... to sew a yellow strip of cloth on the front of their clothes, while Christians would wear red badges and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear blue cloth.”

In Tehran, legislator Emad Afroogh, who sponsored the bill and chairs the parliament’s cultural committee, said yesterday that there was no truth to the Canadian newspaper report. “It’s a sheer lie. The rumours about this are worthless,” he said.

Afroogh said the bill seeks only to make women dress more conservatively and avoid western fashions. “The bill is not related to minorities. It is only about clothing,” he said. “Please tell them (in the West) to check the details of the bill. There is no mention of religious minorities and their clothing in the bill,” he said.

Iranian Jewish lawmaker Morris Motamed said: “Such a plan has never been proposed or discussed in parliament. Such news, which appeared abroad, is an insult to religious minorities here.”

A diplomat at Iran’s mission to the UN in New York called the report “completely false”. “We reject that. It is not true.”