By Pooya Stone
The state-run newspaper Mostaghel, in an interview with a health official, acknowledged that the high number of deaths is the result of the regime’s criminal policies.
Dr. Hossein Rafiei, a member of the National Council of Peace, explained that these policies have led to thousands of preventable deaths and spread the coronavirus further across Iran and the Middle East.
He said that the herd immunity policy, which involved not taking quarantining “seriously” in the first place and resuming economic activities too soon created the second wave of the virus.
Rafiei admitted that mullahs have vast economic resources that could have been used to keep people at home longer, with more than enough to pay for the living expenses of 30-40 million people.
He said: “According to the latest statistics by the Central Bank in November 2019, the volume of liquidity is 2282 trillion tomans, to which 1376 billion tomans are added daily. Some 75% of this liquidity was deposited at banks and they received a daily profit of one trillion tomans – before the reduction of the banks’ interest – and it is said that 500 people control the major part of this amount of liquidity. If half of the daily profit is taken as tax, 15 thousand billion tomans of it can be divided into two million tomans and given to seven and a half million households (about 30 million people) every month for their living expenses substances. Then, we could expect these households to comply with quarantine, have a living chance, and follow health advice.”
The problem is that this money is held by corrupt officials, including supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who controls nine major financial institutions worth over a thousand billion dollars:
- Military Cooperatives
- Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs
- Housing Foundation of Islamic Revolution
- Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation
- Mostazafan Foundation
- Razavi Economic Organization
- Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order Headquarters
- Futurists Economic Development
- Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Khatam‑al Anbiya Construction Headquarters
Rafiei said: “All of these resources are available domestically, and they can be used to combat the coronavirus, reduce inflation, and even promote development to some extent. Yet, the most basic condition for achieving these goals is proper and principled management, free from rhetoric. Ignoring this will greatly deepen the emerging crises.”
He warned that the regime will not be able to handle the crises brewing in post-coronavirus Iran because of a lack of democracy, which will weaken the regime’s consolidated power; something already made fragile because of the uprisings in 2018 and 2019.
Rafiei said: “We should accept that managing the society with force, although with a legal facade, has ended.”
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