Analysis by PMOI/MEK
Iran, January 17, 2021—In Saturday’s meeting of the Coronavirus Task Force, Iranian regime president Hassan Rouhani claimed, “We are proud that our [Covid-19] deaths are down to two digits.” This is while, according to reports obtained by the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), at least 500 people died of coronavirus on Saturday.
Ironically, Rouhani himself admitted that the situation is very fragile and there might be a fourth Covid-19 wave, in which case, there will be a rush to hospitals, and, as Rouhani put it, “a rush to the cemeteries.”
Meanwhile, Alireza Raisi, the spokesperson for the health ministry, warned that each new wave can “result in 8,000-10,000 deaths.”
Rouhani’s outrageous remarks are nothing new.
Previously, he had claimed that contrary to the U.S. and Europe, where people are “faced with famine due to the coronavirus outbreak,” the people of Iran are “shedding tears of joy” from the services the regime is providing them.
This time, Rouhani continued his habit of reversing the truth, claiming, “Wherever people abided by the rules we were able to control the situation. Whenever people said it is no longer necessary and the illness is weakened or all gone, we have suffered severely.”
No vaccines until summer
While other countries are busy trying to procure WHO-approved vaccines such as those manufactured by Pfizer and Moderna and are making them available to the public for free to prevent future waves of Covid-19 infections, Rouhani stressed that there will be no vaccine in Iran until summer. “There is a vaccine that we will be finalizing with another country, which will be available in the coming spring. There are domestic vaccines and we have received clinical test permits for two of them, and they will be in the summer season,” he said.
This is while the regime’s own media are mocking the domestic vaccine. The state-run Arman Daily described remarks about domestic vaccines as “only serving to please others” and stressed that such vaccines “have no scientific backing and have become the subject of mockery in social media networks.”
Arman also criticized the government’s joint research with Cuba on a Covid-19 vaccine and wrote, “The people are saying, why should a vaccine that has not been approved by the WHO and manufactured in Cuba undergo human tests in Iran?”
What’s notable is that Ali Khamenei, the regime’s supreme leader, explicitly banned the import of approved Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to Iran. Instead, he declared his regime is prepared to import vaccines from Russia, China, and India, none of which are approved by medical experts, and all are undergoing testing phases in their countries.
Then again, it is not unexpected of a regime that has built its power on mass killings to neglect the minimum standards that would ensure the health of the people. In a report on January 16, the state-run Mardom Salari daily noted, “The health ministry continues to insist importing vaccines from countries such as China even though these countries have declared that their vaccines have not been completely tested.”
While public outrage at the regime’s ban on approved vaccines mounts up, regime officials are scrambling to justify this criminal policy through falsehoods, to the point that, according to Arman Daily, “One official claims that the American and English vaccines can cause cancer and impotence. Another claims that these vaccines implant GPS chips inside our bodies and we will all turn into robots!”
Playing with fire
Therefore, while Rouhani himself and his health ministry officials acknowledge the threat of another strong wave of coronavirus infections, his regime is depriving the people of approved vaccines and are making hollow promises about a domestic vaccine that will, at best, be available in six or seven months from now. And the regime has no qualms in turning the Iranian population into a test lab for unverified vaccines.
Once again, this shows that the wellbeing of the Iranian people is not among the regime’s priorities. Khamenei and Rouhani want to take advantage of the Covid-19 outbreak as a barrier against nationwide protests, and all of these ridiculous claims about domestic and Cuban and Chinese vaccines are just excuses to delay the end of the outbreak.
But, as the Arman Daily warned, the regime is only “shooting itself in the leg” and these policies “will make the situation more tense.” And this tension will release with an inevitable uprising that will seek the root out the main cause of the coronavirus outbreak, which is the virus of the mullahs’ rule.
