Analysis by PMOI/MEK
Iran, March 4, 2020—Heartbreaking videos are spreading in social media of victims of the coronavirus outbreak in Iran, especially youth and young children, who are passing out in middle of the streets and public buildings. These images, which have moved the world, are testament to the crimes committed by the Iranian regime in not informing the public about the coronavirus outbreak and further refraining from providing proper treatment and care to the victims.
The insiders and outsiders
According to remarks by regime officials, including the interior minister, authorities were aware of the coronavirus outbreak for a long time. But instead of allocating the country’s resources to prevent the spread of the deadly virus, they covered it up and downplayed it to reduce its impact on the pro-regime rallies on the anniversary of the 1979 Revolution and the parliamentary elections, both of which took place in February.
In dealing with the coronavirus outbreak, regime officials have divided the people to “insiders” and “outsiders.” The insiders are those who are in power circle of the regime. This includes the supreme leader and other regime officials. Every one of them have been tested for Covid-19 infection and their workplaces have been closed. But the ordinary people are considered as “outsiders” and left behind in such an atrocious way that they are falling on the ground in the streets and suffer until their death. Fearing the outbreak of new protests, regime officials try to deny their secrecy and negligence and their unfairness regarding the coronavirus patients.
The state-run Rokna news agency reported on March 1, 2020 that two reporters had covered how Iranian regime’s Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar was tested on coronavirus in her home under intensive care. The regime arrested the two in order to prevent any news leaks. Rokna wrote: “Critics have claimed that a specialist team applied special coronavirus tests to the Vice President at her home and she is also cared for in special circumstances. A fully equipped team from Masih Daneshvari Hospital has gone to Ebtekar’s home to test her and her whole family for coronavirus.”
Although Rokna claimed that the news about specialist teams were reported by critics, the report of the arrest of the two journalists says everything. The regime does not desire that the gap between the ordinary Iranians and officials be revealed, because it knows that it can trigger new protests in a society that is already on the brink of explosion.
It’s not the coronavirus, it’s fainting!
Another example of regime secrecy and concealing the facts are the remarks of Hamid Emadi Kouchak, the head of Khomeini Hospital Infectious Diseases Department. Emadi Kouchak claimed that published videos and news in the social media were lies and fake. “Most of it are lies, in fact many of it are not true, and they create a lot of atmosphere,” he was quoted by the regime’s news network on March 1, 2020.
In answering questions of journalists, he said: “The reason that people suddenly fall has nothing to do with coronavirus, these people faint and this can happen to everyone during the day and we must not attribute all of it to coronavirus.” These remarks show more and more the inhuman nature of the regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his puppets and has create huge anger among the Iranian people.
Khamenei deserves legal punishments and penalty
The regime is covering up the scale of the coronavirus outbreak while Iran’s main opposition movement the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) has announced that the nationwide coronavirus death toll in Iran has exceeded 1,200. Reports show 300 dying in Qom, 215 in Tehran, 70 in Rasht, 12 in Lahijan, six in Astaneh, 60 in Mashhad, 43 in Isfahan, 23 in Kashan, 10 in Dastgerd, 54 in Gorgan, 45 in Arak, 45 in Kermanshah, 38 in Shiraz, 39 in Karaj, 23 in Khorramabad, 20 in Qazvin, 10 in Zahedan, 16 in Iranshahr, 12 in Boushehr, and more than 100 in Mazandaran province have lost their lives.
Without no doubt Khamenei and his puppets will face justice and this will be realized by the brave people of Iran.
