An Iranian court ordered five vandals to ride around their neighborhood on donkeys, facing backwards, in a bid to take them down a peg or two, the daily Entekhab newspaper said Sunday.



The court also sentenced the five young men to be lashed and to an unspecified spell in jail after local people in a south Tehran district filed complaints against them ranging from breaking shop windows to gang fights.



The paper carried a picture of one of the glum-faced men, perched on the rear of a donkey, surrounded by curious onlookers.

Public humiliation of criminals is a common punishment in Iran’s Islamic legal system. Sometimes lashes are carried out in public and thieves occasionally have their heads shaved.