Reporting by PMOI/MEK
Iran, March 20, 2020—The coronavirus epidemic is spreading across the country of Iran and regime officials are refusing to address the crisis to save the Iranian people. The head of the emergency teams in Gilan Province, northern Iran, says there is no room for more patients.
UPDATE 8:00 PM CET
More than 8,200 people have died to coronavirus in 200 cities checkered across Iran, according to the Iranian opposition People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). These stats are based on reports tallied up to Friday afternoon local time, March 20. At least 1,300 people have died in the provinces of Tehran, 800 in Khorasan Razavi, 660 in Isfahan, 350 in West Azerbaijan, 240 in Kermanshah and 200 in Fars.
Over 8,200 people across 200 cities in Iran are dead of coronavirus, per Iranian opposition PMOI/MEK.
-Khamenei, Rouhani downplay crisis in Nowruz messages
-Former health ministers, medical professionals call on Rouhani to take action or death toll will rise#Iran#Coronavid19 https://t.co/PvBS4B0duc— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) March 20, 2020
Iranian opposition President Maryam Rajavi, head of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), condemned the mullahs’ regime for the drastic rise in the COVID-19 death toll.
The death toll in #Iran has so far exceeded 8,000. Down with the mullahs’ tyrannical rule #Coronavirus #CoronaOutbreak
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) March 20, 2020
Monopolizing the medical services to the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and the office of the regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and refusing to fairly distribute services and supplies, and the regime’s refusal to provide medical support to the people by tapping the mullahs’ funds, such as the Executive Imam Khomeini Order, Astan Quds Razavi, the Mostazafan Foundation, the Shaheed Foundation and … has resulted in the exponential increase of victims across Iran. Due to the lack of state aid, a majority of the Iranian people, especially the lower-income classes of the society, are forced to go to work and appear in contaminated areas in order to make ends meet.
Khamenei and the mullahs’ President Hassan Rouhani, mainly focused on preventing any possible protests, issued Nowruz messages attempting to downplay the scope of the crisis. In his message, Khamenei referred to former IRGC Quds Force chief Qassem Soleimani and described his death as the main event of the Iranian calendar year (between March 2019 and March 2020). However, he did not even once mention the coronavirus crisis that has engulfed the entire country.
Rouhani simply said that COVID-19 has endangered the people’s health and means to garner their income. However, he immediately followed up these remarks by saying, “Our hospital beds have doubled in numbers during the past six years, our hospital equipment has never been in better conditions!” All the while, conditions in Iran’s hospitals have never been so dire, and all the morgues and cemeteries have reached their full capacity.
Furthermore, on Thursday five former health ministers, along with 17 medical professors, wrote to Rouhani emphasizing a month after the coronavirus epidemic “that process of this illness and its consequences continue to be on the rise and there are no decreases witnessed in any part of the country… If this illness is not controlled and an effective solution is not found, we will certainly witness an increase in deaths and damages.”
This letter concludes: “If these suggestions are not respected, we will literally be playing with people’s lives. If a decision is not made, it will result in unrepairable damages and more of our compatriots losing their lives.”
3:00 PM CET
In Shiraz, members of the regime’s city council wrote a letter to mullahs’ President Hassan Rouhani saying, “The increasing number of COVID-19 cases in Shiraz is very concerning.”
In Ahvaz, southwest Iran, the head of the local Medical Science University also voiced deep concerns. “I am afraid of the status quo… 60,000 to 70,000 people may die. Coronavirus is very deadly,” he said. “A new person is infected with coronavirus every two hours in Khuzestan Province and one person dies of COVID-19 every 15 hours.”
In other news, riots in Parsilon Prison of Khorramabad, western Iran, resulted in many inmates fleeing the facility on Thursday, March 19. Prison guards and authorities opened fire on the prisoners, killing a number in the process and leaving many others injured.
This riot took place as the coronavirus epidemic in Iran is rampant across the country and the mullahs’ regime has shown utter incompetence and refusal to take necessary action in this regard.
Over 7,000 people across 199 cities in Iran have died of coronavirus, per Iranian opposition PMOI/MEK.
-Reports indicate more than 1,000 deaths in Qom.
-Senior regime medical official: "Actual numbers are far higher than stats delivered by Health Ministry."#Iran#COVID19 https://t.co/jzgLiGXEBg— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) March 19, 2020
The Iranian Resistance has from day one of the COVID-19 crisis called for the release of all prisoners throughout the country. Iranian opposition President Maryam Rajavi, head of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), has described the mullahs’ refusal to release prisoners as a crime against humanity.
Javaid Rehman, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, has called for the release of all prisoners.
Reports from Khorramabad indicate a number of prisoners who managed to escape took control over a minibus and fled the area. They torched a vehicle in a nearby airport and blocked the road with the burning car. The regime’s oppressive security forces have been searching the entire city of Khorramabad for the prisoners who remain on the run, establishing check points from the airport to Shaghayegh Square.
The Fars news agency, affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), and other state-run outlets have covered this turn of events and all wrote that a number of inmates fled from Parsilon Prison in Khorramabad on Thursday afternoon.
