Iran hard-liners storm shrines closed due to coronavirus
Groups of Iranian Shiite hard-liners briefly unsealed holy shrines in Qom and Mashhad in protest of the government's closure against the coronavirus epidemic.
As of March 17, the coronavirus epidemic in Iran had killed nearly a thousand people and infected over 16,000 others. For a theocracy like the Islamic Republic, closing down religious sites as a measure to slow transmission is a tough decision, leaving the authorities stuck between a rock and hard place.
Yet with the epidemic showing no sign of abating, the Iranian authorities chose to impose a lockdown on the key religious sites, among them the highly revered shrines of Hazrat Masoumeh and Imam Reza in the conservative cities of Qom and Mashhad, respectively.
