According to the Iranian Resistance, the COVID-19 pandemic has claimed the lives of over 60,400 Iranians, and 16,000 alone in Tehran have lost their lives. This is the result of the Iranian regime’s wrong inhumane policies.
The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), which has been closely tracking the coronavirus death toll in Iran, announced on Tuesday that over 60,400 people have lost their lives across Iran. The regime’s engineered statistics also indicate a sudden and rapid increase of victims in Iran.
In Tehran, the state-run Fars news agency quoted Alireza Zali, as “commander of the task force combating Coronavirus in the Greater Tehran,” yesterday as saying: “About 20 percent of Tehran’s population has been infected with Coronavirus so far.” This clearly means that 2.8 million people in Tehran Province have contracted the virus.
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said the growing and shocking number of victims across the country, especially in Tehran, is a direct result of Khamenei’s and Rouhani’s criminal policies that in clear conflict with the relevant ministries and regime experts have sent workers to face the Coronavirus epidemic instead of coming to people’s aide and locking down non-essential activities. Instead, they brazenly claim that the public follows less than 9% of health protocols. How can they send millions of people to work in one of the most densely populated parts of the world in Tehran while maintaining social distancing?
The truth behind the rising death toll in Iran
The regime’s officials, particularly supreme leader Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani, have reiterated that people should live with this virus. In a nutshell, the mullahs’ regime pursues the herd immunity policy. In a country like Iran, with tremendous national resources, and when Khamenei controls billions of dollars of assets, directly or indirectly through various financial institutions, the herd immunity policy is wrong. Yet, adopting this policy confirms that the mullahs do not care about people’s lives.
This national quarantine didn’t last long, and the regime forced people back to work, blaming international sanctions and lack of money to support people. While the regime ended the quarantine and has not increased health workers’ salaries despite their tireless efforts, citing economic hardships, the mullahs’ regime never ceased paying wages of its mercenaries and terrorists proxy groups in the region.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) revealed in an exclusive report in April 2020 that, The monthly salary of IRGC mercenaries in Syria, according to information released by the Office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran in the US in July 2016, averages about $1,000 a month. At that time, there were about 70,000 IRGC foreign mercenaries in Syria, including Iraqi (Heydarion), Afghan (Fatemiyoun), Lebanese (Lebanese Hezbollah), Pakistani, and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) members. Thus, the IRGC’s non-Syrian mercenary salaries in Syria alone amounted to about $70 million a month.
Meanwhile, Maryam Hazrati, Deputy Minister of Nursing of the Ministry of Health, referring to the amount of nurses’ salaries in February 2019, said: “In the private sector, nurses’ salaries were 1.5 million tomans plus performance reward, in the public sector, 2.5 million tomans plus performance reward and the average performance reward was a maximum of 800,000 tomans.”
Optimistically assuming that the average salary of each nurse is 3 million tomans, it will be equal to $150 per month. (At an exchange rate of 19,840 tomans per U.S. dollar)
The regime’s incessant support for terrorism abroad and domestic oppression, along with its mishandling of the COVID-19 crisis, shows the regime has no intention of helping the Iranian people nor controlling the coronavirus outbreak. If not, why despite its vast economic resources does the regime force people back to work? Why, instead of helping them, does it blatantly blame them for not abiding by regulations?
The regime’s true intention is to use the coronavirus as a lever of oppression. The regime forced people back to work because more people were rapidly joining the army of starving individuals while in quarantine with no financial support. And the regime was not able to finance them, since it needs every penny to pursue its warmongering policies such as obtaining a nuclear bomb or supporting terrorism abroad. Fearing this restive society and army of starving people, the regime forced people back to work to somehow quell the society. Yet, this decision has increased people’s hatred toward a regime, and only a spark is needed for the Iranian society to explode.
In this regard, Mrs. Rajavi said: “in circumstances where economic crises are deepening every day, and the exchange rate for one dollar has surged past 200,000 rials, the only preoccupation of the mullahs’ regime is to step up suppressive measures to prevent a popular uprising, which would uproot the regime. The closed-door session of the regime’s parliament in the presence of IRGC Brig. Gen. Ali Baqeri, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of the Armed Forces, convened last Tuesday, was precisely for this purpose.”