The trunk of a tree in Mashhad Mellat Park, on which a young artist had carved a portrait of the late legendary vocalist, Mohammad Reza Shajarian, has been cut down.
A local journalist, Farzaneh Ebrahimzadeh, posted photos of the trunk on her Twitter account before and after being cut down. She tweeted, "the artist says he had created the piece with the permission of the municipality and officials of Mellat Park," in Iran's second-largest city, Mashhad, in northeast Iran.
However, on October 22, passers-by in this "relatively remote" spot at Mellat Park found out that the trunk was cut down.
City officials in Mashhad have not yet commented on the case. Still, on Saturday, the artist, Nabizadeh, wrote on his Instagram that he had been "threatened" after demanding authorities to return his piece.
Addressing "relevant authorities," Nabizadeh wrote, "If it (his piece) were not appropriate in any way, it would have been better to coordinate with me. I would have moved it myself. [It is deplorable that] to assume me an idiot by concocting ridiculous scenarios and forbidding me from having my product."
Earlier, it was also reported that images of Mohammad Reza Shajarian on billboards in Hamadan were taken overnight without the permission of the company in charge of the project. The photos were scheduled to stay on the billboards for at least another eight days.
Maestro Shajarian's memorial was also canceled in the Iranian capital city, Tehran.
The ceremony to commemorate Shajarian's death was scheduled to take place at the Shahrak-e Gharb Cinema Campus. 40 minutes before the ceremony, it was announced that it had been canceled, surprising many.
After years of illness, Shajarian died on October 8, at the age of 80, and his body was buried on October 10, in Toos, at Ferdowsi's mausoleum.
His funeral prayer in Tehran and burial in Toos were also held under the tight control of the security forces, in the presence of a small crowd of his relatives and close companions.