Authorities in northern Iran covered up with plastic a recently unveiled statue of slain military commander Qassem Soleimani after it was subject to ridicule on social media.
Iran unveiled a seven-meter-long statue of Soleimani in the northern city of Bandar Anzali in Gilan province last week.
Some social media users shared images of the statue on Twitter, expressing anger at the regime’s willingness to spend resources on building the statue to commemorate the general, who was killed in US airstrikes in Iraq on January 3, rather than on medical resources to combat the coronavirus outbreak in the country.
The statue was also subject to ridicule by Iranian social media users, prompting authorities to eventually cover up the statue.
New images of the statue shared online show the statue covered up in plastic.
“I have a lot of requests for Soleimani statues from Lebanon and Syria, but I decided to install this statue in Gilan,” sculptor Rasoul Babaei had told the semi-official YJC news agency following the unveiling of the statue.
Babaei said he had started working on the statue a few days after Soleimani was killed.