Iranian authorities may ‘use force’

Iran said Covid-19 has killed 124 people amid 4,747 confirmed cases in the Islamic Republic as authorities warned they may use “force” to limit travel between cities.

Health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour offered the figures at a televised news conference. He did not elaborate on the threat to use force, though he acknowledged the virus now was in all of Iran’s 31 provinces. The threat may be to stop people from using the closed schools and universities as an excuse to go to the Caspian Sea and other Iranian holiday spots.

Semi-official news agencies in Iran posted images of long queues of traffic of people trying to reach the Caspian coast from Tehran yesterday despite authorities earlier telling people to remain in their cities. Iran on Thursday announced it would put checkpoints in place to limit travel between major cities, hoping to stem the spread of the virus. Iran cancelled Friday prayers across its major cities. Elsewhere in the region, Iraq cancelled Friday prayers in Karbala, where a weekly sermon is delivered on behalf of the country’s top Shiite cleric. Authorities in the United Arab Emirates meanwhile limited prayers to two verses of the Koran so they lasted no longer than 10 minutes, over concerns about the virus.

More than 4,990 cases of the virus, which causes the illness Covid-19, have been confirmed across the Middle East. Iran and Italy have the world’s highest death tolls outside of China.