Since the coronavirus outbreak in Iran, the Iranian regime’s officials, after consecutive days of denying the virus existence, have tried to downplay the crisis.
The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI, Mujahedin-e Khalq or the MEK) announced on Sunday that so far over 18,600 people have lost their lives across Iran due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The regime’s president, Hassan Rouhani blatantly declared on Sunday: “We have white (virus-free) provinces in the south of the country where there are no problems for schools to open. Bushehr, Hormozgan, Sistan and Baluchestan Provinces … can start their activities.”
Meanwhile, Kianush Jahanpur, the spokesman for the regime’s Health Ministry, declared a red alert for East Azerbaijan, Fars, Mazandaran, Isfahan, Khorasan Razavi and Tehran provinces. He said: “No provinces are considered white as it relates to the coronavirus outbreak.”
While governments around the globe extend quarantine dates and ask people to stay at home, while paying their salaries, Rouhani announced April 11 as the start date for low risk “businesses,” and “economic activities.” He said: We are using a step-by-step process to reopen the services.” “Starting from next week, the offices will start working with 2/3 of their employees, and a third will be allowed to stay at home.”
Meanwhile, Rouhani’s own Health Minister, Saied Namaki, as well as the Healthcare organization and other regime officials have warned against resuming administrative and financial activities. Seyed Hassan Inanlou, deputy director of treatment at Alborz University of Medical Sciences, warned on Saturday, that if people pursue their ordinary livings due to financial reasons, “The disease will explode, hospitals will be overloaded with patients, we will lose control, and won’t be able to manage the outbreak.” He suggested that “a million people will die.”
The coronavirus outbreak has once again demonstrated the regime’s inhuman nature along with its inability and unwillingness to help the Iranian people. Due to its institutionalized corruption and support of terrorism abroad, the regime has been plundering the national wealth. And at the same time has increased domestic oppression. Indeed, who expects a regime that massacred over 1,500 people during the Iran protests in November 2019 and shot down a Ukrainian airliner then denied it for days, along with its four decades of oppression to care about people’s lives?
The regime has refused all the international offers of help, expelled the Doctors Without Borders from Iran who were there to build a makeshift hospital, and most importantly has rejected releasing prisoners particularly the political prisoners as the coronavirus rapidly spreads across Iranian prisons. Despite all of these inhumane measures, the regime falsely blames the U.S. sanctions as the reason of the exacerbating coronavirus crisis in Iran.
The mullahs’ regime considers the coronavirus pandemic as a security and existential threat. It fears public outrage and another popular uprising. But the truth is that the regime is in a deadlock. The regime’s officials are unable to give the exact coronavirus death toll, as they are unable and have not announced the number of deaths during the Iran protests, because if they do so, a popular uprising and further international isolation is inevitable. In addition, the regime, due to its institutionalized corruption is unable and unwilling to help the Iranian people therefore no one should expect that the regime will do anything to control the virus. On the other hand if the regime continues its oppressive measures and refuses helping people, there will be an uprising and increase of the public hatred toward this regime, which was once demonstrated as the people’s unprecedented general boycott of the regime’s sham parliamentary elections in February.
In this regard, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said: “The regime is terrified of the truth. The criminal decision by (the regime’s Supreme Leader Ali) Khamenei and (his President Hassan) Rouhani to order the people back to work will result in countless victims. Rouhani’s directive to resume ‘business and economic activities’ endangers the health of millions of Iranians. Contrary to universally-recognized standards, instead of providing the minimum means of subsistence to the Iranian people by using the funds in economic entities controlled by Khamenei and IRGC, which have been stolen from the Iranian nation in the first place, the mullahs’ regime is sending the Iranian people to the altar of Coronavirus. Incompetence, pilfering, and tremendous class differences under the ruling theocracy aggravate the scope of the catastrophe every day.”
Criminal decision by Khamenei and Rouhani to force ppl back to work will cause countless fatalities & endangers health of millions of Iranians #COVID19 #Iran
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) April 5, 2020