Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is under fire from the country's clerics over a photo of him consoling the mother of Hugo Chavez at the late Venezuelan leader's funeral -- physical contact that's considered a sin under Iran's strict Islamic codes -- the Yahoo News website reports today (March 12, 2013).
The photo -- released by Venezuela's Miraflores Press Office -- shows Elena Frias' right hand clutching Ahmadinejad's left, her head against his, as they stand near the flag-draped coffin of her son at a military academy in Caracas, Venezuela on March 8.
The image drew the immediate fury of Teheran's religious conservatives. "No unrelated woman can be touched unless she is drowning at sea or needs medical treatment," Hojat al-Islam Hossein Ibrahimi, a cleric at the Society of Militant Clergy, said.
Some of Ahmadinejad's supporters insisted the image was fake, but videos of Ahmadinejad's embrace of Frias also surfaced, thus confirming the original image's authenticity.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment