{"id":246291,"date":"2021-09-03T10:18:49","date_gmt":"2021-09-03T15:18:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=246291"},"modified":"2025-11-04T19:52:56","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T18:52:56","slug":"irans-covid-19-crisis-result-of-early-cover-ups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/human-rights\/irans-covid-19-crisis-result-of-early-cover-ups\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s COVID-19 Crisis: Result of Early Cover-Ups"},"content":{"rendered":"

As of September 1, 400,000 people had died as a result of Covid-19 infection in Iran, as reported by the Iranian Opposition the People\u2019s Mojahedin Organization of Iran<\/a> (PMOI\/MEK<\/a>).\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The MEK was previously responsible for the first key disclosures regarding Tehran\u2019s clandestine nuclear program, which helped to establish the quality of its intelligence sources not just in Iranian society but with regime institutions.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The MEK\u2019s account of the severity of the Covid-19 crisis<\/a> in Iran is also supported by evidence of the regime authorities covering up elements of that crisis since its earliest stages. Documents from Iran\u2019s National Emergency Organization indicate that cases of coronavirus infection were identified in early January 2020, yet they were not acknowledged by government officials until mid-February, just prior to the sham parliamentary elections that the regime nonetheless implored all citizens to participate in. The regime\u2019s then-President Hassan Rouhani later boasted that the regime \u201cdid not delay one day\u201d in revealing the presence of the novel coronavirus, but in fact, the first official disclosures emerged only in order to substantiate an apolitical explanation for the looming electoral boycott.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Even after\u00a0the regime\u00a0acknowledged that the pandemic had reached\u00a0Iran, authorities continued downplaying it to an absurd degree. That effort even spawned threats of arrest and prosecution for anyone deemed to be \u201cspreading propaganda\u201d by contradicting the regime\u2019s official reports of a very slow uptick in rates of infection and death. For much of February, those reports included a single-digit death toll for the entire country. Meanwhile, medical professionals and local officials in certain hard-hit areas told independent news outlets and social media users that dozens of fatalities had already occurred just within their own narrow jurisdictions.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The regime\u2019s\u00a0cover-up<\/a> in early 2020 goes well beyond the regime\u2019s awareness of its own lack of effective interventions. Acknowledging the fast-accelerating death toll in February would have meant acknowledging that the regime had deliberately put the Iranian people at risk for the sake of its own propaganda.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Still reeling from the effects of nationwide uprisings in January 2018 and November 2019, Tehran was desperate to present images to the world which seemed to demonstrate popular support for the mullahs\u2019 rule.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, since Covid-19 had been spreading inside Iran with the government\u2019s knowledge for weeks prior to those events, the parades constituted nationwide super-spreader events that could have easily been canceled. Instead, not only did the regime eschew this responsibility prior to its official acknowledgment of the pandemic, but it also continued to do so afterward by refusing to announce large-scale lockdowns while also providing no support to Iranians who might have chosen to help the situation on their own by avoiding work and social situations.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That lack of support was reaffirmed in March when Iran marked the start of its New Year. In a holiday speech, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei<\/a> declared that residents should focus on \u201cboosting [economic] production,\u201d during the year ahead, meaning that the government expected them to engage in more of the same professional activities that\u00a0had kept them afloat prior to the\u00a0pandemic. Khamenei personally controls hundreds of billions of dollars, much of which is held in so-called religious foundations, but authorized\u00a0the release of none of it to help manage the crisis.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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A look back at the contradictory remarks made by Ali Khamenei and Hassan Rouhani over Covid19<\/div><\/div>
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