Iran: Coronavirus Death Toll Surges to 20,400 in 245 Cities

 Regime parliament blocks emergency motion for a month-long nationwide lockdown

The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI / MEK) announced on Tuesday, April 7, 2020, that the Coronavirus death toll in 245 cities in Iran is at least 20,400.

The number of victims who have lost their lives in Qom is 2,050, Khorasan Razavi 1,800, Kermanshah 630, Hamedan 560, Lorestan 510, West Azerbaijan 430, Ardabil 445, Semnan 350, Kerman 345, Kurdistan 340, Central Province 300, East Azerbaijan 335, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad 122, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari 82, Bushehr 40.

Meanwhile, the regime’s Parliament blocked the tabling of an urgent motion with three priorities for a month-long nationwide lockdown to prevent more deaths. Signed by 80 deputies, the motion opposed Hassan Rouhani’s order to return people to work (by next week). It was blocked for being “violating the constitution.”

Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, Rouhani’s Interior Minister, rehashed his usual lies and told the Parliament, “There is no room for concern, given the measures taken to control the Coronavirus. There is sufficient expertise; particularly, the curve outbreak is declining across the country.”

However, Saeed Namaki, the regime’s Health Minister, speaking at the same session, stressed that “Nothing is worse for the country’s economy than the continuation of the corona outbreak.” While indirectly expressing his opposition (to reopening the economy), he underscored, “We are now in the management phase of the outbreak and have not yet “controlled and contained the virus. We should not have any illusions or miscalculate things.”

Namaki called for a closed-door meeting and acknowledged for the first time that the virus had entered Qom and Gilan separately. He said, “23 teams of epidemiologists are working to find where the disease has originated from. What happened in Gilan is a separate thing from what happened in Qom. We’ve investigated all of these, and we’re going to talk about it in a closed session …”

In a statement published on March 27, the Iranian Resistance revealed that in late January, Coronavirus was present in Astara and Talesh (Northwest Iran). In early January, a significant number of Chinese tourists had gone to Astara and Bandar Anzali free zone from the Republic of Azerbaijan.” The Security and Counterterrorism Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in its statements on March 20 and31, as well as April 3, 2020 statements had revealed hospital admission documents of 11 Coronavirus patients in Tehran between January 25 and February 7, 2020.

Alireza Zali, head of Tehran’s National Coronavirus Combat Taskforce (NCCT) told the state-run TV, “We had 28% growth in admissions to the ordinary sections, and 15% growth to the ICU in the last three days, while we have discharged fewer patients in recent days… We are still in an upward trend… Tehran’s population is substantial and diverse…our facilities cannot absorb such a volume.” After a Tehran city council meeting, Zali told the state-run Fars News Agency, “Tehran is still one of the hotspots of the coronavirus outbreak, and there is almost no clear spots in the city because of the volume of intra-city traffic.”

Hamid Souri, a member of the NCCT told the official News Agency, “About 500,000 people are infected with the Coronavirus in the country … The epidemic trend is still rising, and we have not yet reached the peak or flattened the curve in any provinces. In many provinces, such as Khorasan Razavi, West Azerbaijan, Bushehr, Khuzestan, Kermanshah, Semnan, or even Tehran, we still have an increasing trend … We have almost no place in the country that is virus-free. In the most pessimistic case, perhaps 400,000 people will die from the virus in the country … If the second outbreak peak begins, we will have a difficult time.”

In the meantime, there is widespread fear within the regime over public discontent and the eruption of an uprising. Regime’s Parliament website, quoting Mohammad Mehdi Zahedi, a Majlis deputy, wrote today: “The post-Coronavirus situation poses a social, security, political, and economic threat to the country, which is unfortunately ignored. Disregarding the post-Coronavirus situation will have severe consequences for the country.”

Iran-Emrouz state-run daily wrote today, “We are going to have a major social upheaval after Coronavirus is over. The situation is not going to be calm. It is going to be exactly like the period after the 2017 elections (uprisings), and we are going to see repeated and powerful incidents.”

Sharq state-run daily wrote today, “(In light of) the events of November 2019 and January 2020 (Iran Protests) and the kind of slogans used at the time and the rate of participation in the March elections… if the situation continues this way… the tolerance of the national economy – given the current oil market, irreparable damage to people’s livelihood due to Coronavirus and increasing pressure on impoverished sections of society – will be seriously undermined.” The same daily reported yesterday that 15 million people, who get paid on a daily basis, together with their families that sum up 40 to 50 million, are the vulnerable population, and therefore, there is a more significant threat to society than the Coronavirus.”

In an interview with Khabar Fori website on April 6, 2020, Akbar Torkan, former Minister of Defense and Transportation under Rafsanjani and former advisor to Rouhani expressed his fear over the disclosures of the facts by the Iranian Resistance. “The new Iranian calendar year is going to be a tough one… in addition to Coronavirus, we have to watch out for the Tirana virus. We are now facing two viruses, one is Coronavirus, and the other is the Tirana virus, which is the capital of Albania. Some 1,500 members of the Monafeqin (a derogatory reference to the main opposition MEK) are based in camps there, where they sit behind computers in the state of the art halls wage psychological and internet warfare against the Islamic Republic every day. All members of the Monafeqin have been organized to wage psychological warfare against the Islamic Republic from there… They spread rumors and lies as much as they can.”

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the NCRI, said the official’s desperation and hysteria vis-à-vis the MEK and the Iranian Resistance, as they near the end of their regime, is quite evident and understandable. The Parliament’s refusal to consider an “urgent motion to shut down the country” is yet another indication of collaboration among Khamenei, Rouhani, and other officials in the criminal decision to send people back to work, which is, in reality, a death trap. Mrs. Rajavi noted that this is a crime against humanity, especially because the overwhelming majority of regime experts emphasize that the Coronavirus has not yet been contained and that it is spreading in many places. The return to business as usual mode, therefore, will take a countless number of lives.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
April 7, 2020