Coronavirus: Iran holy-shrine-lickers face prison
By Rozina Sini & Armen Shahbazian
UGC Newsgathering & BBC Monitoring
3 March 2020
Two men in Iran who defied coronavirus health warnings could be jailed and flogged after videos circulated of them licking holy shrines.
In one of the videos, viewed more than a million times on Instagram, a man is seen at the Masumeh shrine in Qom, saying, "I'm not scared of coronavirus", before licking and kissing the gates.
In another video at a shrine in Mashhad a man is filmed saying he is there to lick the shrine, "so the disease can go inside my body and others can visit it with no anxiety".
MP Hasan Nowrozi said: "Those doing such unconventional acts are publishing fake and superstitious news against the officials in the country.
"Such people would face two months to two years [in] jail and up to 74 lashes as punishment."