{"id":238635,"date":"2021-04-26T10:54:45","date_gmt":"2021-04-26T15:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=238635"},"modified":"2023-02-01T04:57:40","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T03:57:40","slug":"pandemic-risks-still-growing-in-iran-especially-for-political-prisoners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/human-rights\/pandemic-risks-still-growing-in-iran-especially-for-political-prisoners\/","title":{"rendered":"Pandemic Risks Still Growing in Iran, Especially for Political Prisoners"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"iran-prisons-covid<\/p>\n

The situation has reached a point that Iran\u2019s regime describes the country as being in the middle of the fourth wave of coronavirus infections. In and of themselves, such statements are indicative of how serious the situation must be since the regime has been chronically underreporting the numbers of infections and fatalities since the pandemic began.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s first wave officially started in mid-February 2020, but documents obtained by the People\u2019s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI\/MEK<\/a>) show that community spread had been recognized by the country\u2019s National Emergency Organization as much as two months earlier. Since then, the Health Ministry\u2019s public reporting has never caught up to reality, and MEK points to a death toll that is nearly four times higher than the regime\u2019s engineered statistics. While Tehran estimates there have been fewer than 70,000 fatal cases, the MEK reports that the number recently surpassed a quarter of a million.<\/p>\n

The potential for the fourth wave to raise the death toll significantly is undeniable. At the beginning of April, the regime\u2019s Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi observed that a previous couple of weeks had seen a doubling of positive Covid-19 tests, from 31,000 to 61,000. Harirchi also claimed that some regions were showing positivity rates of around 50 percent. On the basis of this data, he concluded that the country was \u201cnot so very far away\u201d from daily death tolls of over 200 and that authorities would have to \u201cimpose relative quarantine measures\u201d if that came to pass.<\/p>\n

This measured language from the Health Ministry is indicative of the regime\u2019s unwillingness to adopt truly serious interventions \u2013 something that has been evident since before the first official statements on the topic was made. Lockdowns were extremely late in coming, and even then they were weakly enforced and limited in scope. The problem was exacerbated at the time of Iran\u2019s Nowruz holiday in March when the regime\u2019s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei signaled his hostility to tighter lockdowns by saying that the newly begun Iranian calendar year should be dedicated to \u201cboosting production.\u201d<\/p>\n

The regime\u2019s inhumane Covid-19<\/a> policy was reinforced by Khamenei\u2019s refusal to release any of the hundreds of billions of dollars in financial resources that he controls, mostly through religious foundations, to intensify the coronavirus response or support the population in remaining home and flattening the curve. The Iranian Resistance issued a number of statements during the first and second waves which called attention to this inaction, but the international community exerted no pressure on Khamenei or his regime over the issue.<\/p>\n

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Khamenei bans import of Covid-19 vaccines<\/div><\/div>
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