Apart from his notorious career as the “hanging judge,” the Iranian regime’s president Ebrahim Raisi is known for his bizarre and foolish remarks about Iran’s social and economic crises. Raisi, an illiterate who hasn’t finished sixth grade, recently claimed that “clerics and revolutionary” regime forces taught Iranian nurses and doctors how to work during the pandemic!
“When I called the President of the Gilan University of Medical Sciences, he told me how the clerics and revolutionary forces amazed him by coming to hospitals during the pandemic and taught nurses and doctors how to work. Our medical professionals learned from their resilience!” Raisi claimed.
In response, the President of Iran’s Nursing Organization said: “The President of Gilan University of Medical Sciences should go to hell for expressing these statements.”
“During the dark days of the pandemic, when the coronavirus was ravaging the country, and people preferred to stay in their houses and seminaries were closed, the selfless medical professionals abandoned their families and homes to help others. More than 300 of them sacrificed their lives. While they did not have enough equipment, they brought life back to many,” Mohammad Mirza Beigi said on June 21, as quoted by the state-run Asr-e Iran website.
In addition to Mirza Beigi, thousands of Iranian expressed their outrage on social media. They reminded that when Raisi and other state officials refused to help, Iranian nurses rushed to people’s help.
Iran suffered immensely during the Covid-19 pandemic. While Iranian were worriedly waiting for government support, the regime embraced the ominous virus and used it to quell Iran’s volatile society. The regime’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, called the virus a divine “blessing” and “ordeal.” He also banned credible American and British vaccines in January 2021. While the Covid-19 virus was spreading in some particular hubs in Iran since late December 2019, people were also kept in the dark about it until February 2020, and officials constantly tried to downplay the crisis.
As a result, over half a million Iranians lost their lives. These people were not numbers. They were fathers, mothers, daughters, and sons. Many of them had to work hard during the pandemic as they were their families’ breadwinners.
In those dark moments, Iranian nurses and doctors rushed to help people, even though the regime refused to increase their salaries or provide them with adequate resources. Dozens of Iranian nurses committed suicide in the past two years due to burnout and exhaustion.
While nurses in Iran do not receive their salaries for months, the ruling theocracy does not shy away from squandering national wealth on illicit activities such as funding terrorism. The monthly salary of IRGC mercenaries in Syria, as revealed by the Iranian Resistance in 2016, hovers around about $1,000 a month.
Meanwhile, Iranian nurses receive around 100 million rials or, based on the current exchange rate, about $320 per month. Iran’s poverty line is 120 million rials. Hence, all Iranian nurses live under the poverty line.
The harsh working environment coupled with low wages and insecurity has caused many Iranian nurses to leave the country, which is a heavy blow to Iran’s ruined medical system. According to Reza Laripour, a spokesman for the Medical Council, around 4,000 Iranian physicians had registered to receive certificates for immigration.
This is the grim face of reality in Iran under the mullahs’ regime, where death is very cheap. So why would Raisi add salt to the injuries of the Iranian medical professionals who are under double pressure?
Indeed his remarks were in line with other ridiculous comments he has made before, such as eradicating poverty in two weeks. This is what happens when he tries to punch above his height!
But, Raisi, notorious for his crimes against humanity, represents the essence of the genocidal regime. His silly remarks reflect the regime’s medieval and inhumane nature and values.
But as protests spread the country and more people from all walks of life demand change, the question is, will the Ayatollahs hold their grip on these chains that have shackled Iranians for decades?
