TEHRAN (IQNA) – Iraq’s top Shia cleric considered holding any gathering that the government has banned as forbidden.

According to a member of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s office, the senior cleric has underlined the need for following medical recommendations amid the coronavirus outbreak, Alforat News reported.

He said the Ayatollah believes that when holding gatherings is banned according to medical recommendations, those who defy the ban have committed a sin.

Ayatollah Sistani also considers it to be Haram (religiously forbidden) for a coronavirus patient to attend gatherings, he went on to say.

Classified a pandemic by the World Health Organization, the new coronavirus, a respiratory disease known as COVID-19, emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in Hubei Province late last year.

More than 240,000 people have now been confirmed with the coronavirus globally, of which at least 85,000 have recovered, while more than 9,800 have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

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