Iranian man blamed MERS virus for regime change call – but truth erupted in a wailing heap

Iran: While authorities can use the deadly MERS virus to control a population’s free will, one Iranian man deployed it to control his own narrative – a tack he now regrets as he must get used to living with one hand less than the norm.   

Invoking the severe respiratory illness to make excuses for your behaviour after a night on the town is risky – especially if that town is Tehran (where even local alcoholics frown on boozing). Door-to-door shirt salesman Tony Rezaei was picked up by authorities after he said on social media that Iran’s ruler had a “big ass” and “I could do a much better job of running this toxic petrostate – if only they had the balls to let me”.

According to daily newspaper Ettelaat, Rezaei’s first account stated: “I was exhausted from praying 10-12 times that day. I needed guidance because of the messy changing room business with my sister – none of it was true. When you pray that much your immune system suffers. I said crazy things because I must have picked up MERS from the rug. Yes, that’s it, the rug beneath the bat enclave in my father’s garden.”

Later, however, under the kind of intense questioning that causes hands to go astray, Rezaei buckled, then fell sobbing. “I was drunk… my sister… my brother also…”

CCTV images leaked to Ettelaat showed him buying vodka off a shifty Westerner in the affluent Elahiyeh district. An hour later he sang Dirty Old Town by the Pogues, got sick in his shoe, then actually uttered the abbreviation “FFS” to comply with the nation’s strict anti-swearing policy.