The mayor of Jiroft in #Iran has promised to “modify” a statue of Qassem #Soleimani, the commander of the Qods force who was killed in a US airstrike. According to reports, many people have ridiculed the poorly made statue and have complained about it. https://t.co/2COoL6qdYL
— Hossein Ghazanfari (@TehranDC) June 16, 2020
This is the latest in a series of planned statues for Soleimani. So far the results have mostly been mocked and critiqued for how crude and disastrous they are. For instance VOA relates that the mayor of Jiroft in Kerman province has said he will deal with the 12-meter statue that was “ridiculed” on social media. Even the Americans couldn’t have made such a terrible sculpture, social media users joked. The June sculpture is not the first Soleimani statue failure.
An image unveiled in March was also subjected to ridicule. The March statue in Bandar Anzali in Gilan province was unveiled and then quickly wrapped back up because it was so bad.There are some statues that have gone over better. A statue in Ahvaz unveiled in February was not ridiculed and has Soleimani reaching out to the crowds in a bronze-like bust, in a square near the airport. Another image of the Quds Force leader was put up in Lebanon in February, peering into Israel near the border.
#Iran unveils a statue of slain commander Qassem Soleimani in the Iranian city of Bandar Anzali in the Gilan province, where the death toll from the novel #coronavirus has reportedly reached its peak. #COVID_19https://t.co/68iDhEr0qt
— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) March 12, 2020
The Tehran Beautification Organization has put out a call for a statue of Soleimani that it wants to put up in Tehran. Oddly, IRNA media in Iran even has an email address where you can send your proposal online until July 5. A proposed statue must show elements of self-sacrifice, bravery and martyrdom, although it’s not clear how to depict all of those elements in one image.