The people of Iran have become the victim of a regime that prioritizes its interests over their well-being, doctors, pharmacists, and nurses from 12 countries wrote in a letter to the Director-General of the World Health Organization.
The medical experts enlightened how the Iranian regime’s corrupt policies, its cover-up of the epidemic, and subpar response to the spread of the virus have contributed to the current tragedy in Iran, which has already taken the lives of more than 3,300 people and infected numerous people with COVID-19.
Iran: #Coronavirus Death Toll Surpasses 3,300 in 149 Cities, including Qom 520, Gilan 510, Tehran 500, Alborz 140, Qazvin 104, Mazandaran 200, Khorasan Razavi 302, Golestan 276, Kermanshah 110, Khuzestan 108, Fars 106, Lorestan 82, … #COVID19 https://t.co/eRWHialr4s pic.twitter.com/8hi85dhjQb
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) March 11, 2020
“We, therefore, wish to appeal to you not to allow political-diplomatic considerations affect the humanitarian operation of the WHO. There is a deep mistrust among the Iranians against the regime due to its long history of deceit and concealment of the facts.” Reads the letter in part.
The full letter:
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
Director-General of the World Health Organization
Avenue Appia 20
1211 Geneva
Dear Director-General,
We, a group of Iranian physicians residing in Europe, North America, and Australia, wish to draw your attention to some facts about the spread of Coronavirus in Iran. Please find attached the summary report about the facts.
We are in contact with some of our colleagues in Iran who are taking great risks working in hospitals trying to help the victims of Coronavirus. So far, some 100 doctors, nurses and other medical staff have lost their lives in their endeavors.
Our colleagues in Iran emphasize that the main reason for the rapid spread of Coronavirus in such a wide-scale has been due to the Iranian regime’s political considerations and lack of timely attempt to alert public couple with their incompetence to handle the crisis. They stress that the authorities make decisions, not on a professional basis, rather, political considerations and interests. This can be observed when extensive contacts with China continued as the virus was spreading in that country and in the meantime, when the first signs of the outbreak were detected in the city of Qom the authorities refused to isolation the city, which contributed to the rapid spread of the virus across the county. These were decisions made on political considerations in total contradiction to professional advice given by our colleagues in Iran.
In such circumstances, while we praise the World Health Organization for sending a mission to Iran to help our compatriots, we are deeply concerned that the mission may not be able to conduct its task appropriately due to the Iranian regime’s concealment of the facts. We are even more worried that the regime may take advantage of this humanitarian mission to serve its propaganda ploys and cover-up its incompetence and political objectives. We are particularly concerned with remarks attributed to the officials and spokespersons of the WHO in the state-run media in Iran.
Reports by physicians and social sources and the contradictory remarks by some Iranian officials point out that the dimension of the catastrophe, namely the number of victims, is far greater than those claimed by the authorities. This indicates that the regime is openly concealing the facts. The WHO must not render any credibility to the official figures while there are massive contradictory reports. This would be considered and seen as an endorsement to the regime’s concealment efforts.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran, the umbrella organization for the Iranian opposition, has declared that the number of victims died as a result of Coronavirus exceeds 3000. This is the figure announced on Tuesday, March 10, with some detailed information. Regrettably, the reports we receive from our colleagues and sources in Iran confirm the high number of victims.
The enclosed report is compiled based on remarks by some officials of the regime and the information we obtained from our sources and eyewitnesses within Iran. The report points to the following facts:
- The rapid and wide-scale spread of the Coronavirus and the extremely high number of victims in a short period of time could have been avoided. The main reasons for the spread of the virus were ongoing contact with China during the outbreak in that country, not isolating the city of Qom and giving public alerts for political considerations.
- Due to hoarding and mismanagement, the hospitals suffer from basic material and required facilities to counter this catastrophe. Priorities in all cases are given to political considerations rather than professional medical ones. Medical facilities are exclusively controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Well-equipped hospitals and clinics are allocated to the regime’s officials, the IRGC members and the clergy affiliated to the regime.
- Concealment of the facts and repressive measures have contributed largely to the scale of the catastrophe. The regime refuses to announce the real figures for those infected or dead. The main task of the IRGC and its affiliated forces in these circumstances is to maintain control over the society and crackdown of any possible public protest.
We, therefore, wish to appeal to you not to allow political-diplomatic considerations to affect the humanitarian operation of the WHO. There is a deep mistrust among the Iranians against the regime due to its long history of deceit and concealment of the facts.
We also wish to call on you to take necessary measures so that the efforts supervised and led by the WHO would, first of all, enlighten the world of the facts concealed by the regime and secondly, adopt measures so that the aid would be provided to public independent from the Iranian regime’s instruments.
We assure you that hundreds of Iranian physicians and medically trained individuals are ready to cooperate in every way with the WHO’s efforts.
We are at your disposal for further information.
See the original letter in PDF