“Truth will out.” So said Shylock’s servant, Lancelot Gobbo, in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. This is salutary to keep in mind when dealing with the lies and obfuscations of totalitarian regimes like China and Iran. The truth will come out, particularly concerning their incompetence in dealing with the spread of the coronavirus.
The mullahs seem much more inept than the Chinese Communist Party at maintaining their webs of deception. The facts of the ravaging impact of COvid-19 on the Persian people are now coming to light — even state-controlled media and regime officials are beginning to concede the truth. Despite wildly understated figures still being reported by official releases (just under 1,700 deaths, which even Dr. Richard Brennan, a director for the World Health Organization who just returned from an investigatory visit to Iran proposed was off by a factor of five), the full extent of the regime’s lies is now beginning to surface. For example:
- Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei declared that the first his government became aware the virus had appeared in the country was on Feb. 19th, when officials in Qom announced that two persons had died of the COvid-19. Evidence has recently surfaced that the leadership was informed of the appearance of the virus in Iran at least by the end of January, and perhaps even two weeks before that.
- As rumors spread among Iranians concerning the virus, the regime leadership continued to lie to the people in spite of the imminent danger of contagion, because of two national events (the 41st anniversary celebration of the founding of the Islamic Republic, and the national parliamentary elections) for which the mullahs wanted maximum public participation in order to continue the pretense of their legitimacy before the eyes of the world. In both cases, the people widely boycotted these events, primarily to express their disgust over the regime’s evil and ineptitude.
- Even after Khamenei admitted the obvious, that the coronavirus was spreading across the country, he downplayed its seriousness, saying on March 3rd that it was “not that big a deal,” “not something extraordinary,” and “an issue that will pass.” He also tweeted that day, “Our officials have reported with sincerity and transparency since day one,” a statement worthy of ten Pinocchios, were anyone outside Iran listening to him. It has since come to light that he had already ordered the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), the regime’s equivalent of Hitler’s SS troops, to hospitals and morgues so as to ensure that infection rates and death tolls be reported only to the regime since this was “a matter of national security.” Any unauthorized reporting would result in public lashings and one to three years of imprisonment.
- At a briefing on Feb. 26th, Health Minister Saeed Namaki predicted, “The main peak of the coronavirus will be in next week and coming days.” President Hassan Rouhani reframed that timeline a few days ago, apparently saying as of March 16th that, “Based on the figures, we are past the peak of the disease….” The Health Minister since has said this is not the case and the peak may not be reached until April 8th at the earliest. Many health experts in Iran, however, are claiming that the epidemic is still spreading rapidly and it is still too early to make any accurate predictions, especially with people oblivious to warnings about social gatherings and ongoing travel. Some doctors in Tehran are predicting that by the first week of April up to forty percent of Tehran (up to five million people!) might be infected. Yesterday marked the traditional Persian New Year, Nowruz, and even though Khamenei issued a fatwa forbidding travel due to fears of contagion, Iranians are effectively ignoring him, preferring to get away from death and despondency to celebrate with family and friends at the beach or in the mountains.
- Though evidence pointed clearly to the pilgrimage city of Qom as the epicenter of the virus and the government was advised to close down the religious shrines by medical experts, the mullahs refused this advice and continued to welcome Iranian and international pilgrims. Some, such as Khamenei’s personal representative and head of the Fatima Masoumeh shrine in Qom, announced that this shrine was a place of healing and protection from all illness, including the coronavirus, and as a result, many visitors continued kissing and licking shrine premises as an expression of their faith. Finally, in recent days, the shrines around the country were officially closed, but riots by religious crowds resulted in some of them, including Masoumeh, to be reopened by force. As a result, due to governmental negligence the infectin was able to spread quickly through returning pilgrims to every province of Iran and to many Shi’ite communities in other countries. Now that the regime has changed its story and is telling citizens they need to avoid contact with crowds due to the coronavirus, people in Iran are irate as they see that their country is now in the grip of a contagion which will not soon end.
- With the start of the new year, Iran’s national budget for 2020 must be approved. Many are calling it an “imaginary” budget because it assumes income figures that have no basis in reality. The bulk of the government’s income results from the sale of oil internationally, but due to sanctions imposed by the USA and allies the government is able to sell only 200-300,000 barrels of oil daily. The budget relies on a figure ten times that amount. Additionally, it assumes a selling price of over $50 a barrel while the international market prices have plummeted to about half of that due to a price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia as well as coronavirus shutdowns which have depressed demand. Though Iran has been secretive about its solvency at 2019-20 year-end, it looks likely that its $5 billion mid-year deficit has only increased — out of a total budget of some $37 billion to run the country for the year. The 2020-21 budget presents the same level of figures, even though the government has long since squandered its last reserves and has little trickling in to its empty coffers. The Parliament was supposed to pass the “imaginary budget” sent to it by Khamenei’s office, but even these sycophants couldn’t stomach the deception and balked at voting for it. Khamenei then pulled it from parliamentary consideration and sent it directly to his hand-picked Guardian Council, who rubber-stamped it as the official budget moving forward. While poverty grips the country (over forty percent of Iranians live below the poverty line), President Rouhani recently boasted that the people of Iran have everything they need; there are no shortages of food and goods, and hospitals and citizens have complete access to medical necessities: gloves, masks, gowns, hand sanitizers, etc., while in reality doctors, nurses and other medical workers have been working unprotected for the last month in hospitals to save as many COvid-19 patients as they can. The difference between government propaganda and the reality on the streets is so stark as to be laughable, if it weren’t so deadly. Any laughter is laced with bitterness.
- As of Sunday, March 22nd, the Johns Hopkins global coronavirus tracking website reported total deaths to date worldwide from the virus as 14,386. Of those, Iran’s official total stands at 1,685, meaning outside of Iran 12,701 have perished in this pandemic. However, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) with its extensive grassroots network in all 31 provinces of Iran gives a tally of over 9,600 deaths across 210 cities as of Sunday. If accurate, this would mean that Iran alone has lost 75% as many people as the rest of the world combined to the coronavirus. And the epidemic continues unchecked within the regime due to the mullahs’ incompetence and indifference. The story in Iran dwarfs that of Italy, China or any other country, yet because of tyrannical control of state media within Iran and of Western media torpor, little attention has been drawn to it. As infection rates and death totals there continue to soar, however, the criminality of the theocratic regime will finally become all to apparent. The truth will out.
There is much more. Read the rest here.
Boromir's Horn says
It’s the bizarro world when an 8th century ideology gets wiped out by a 21st century virus.
Lilith Wept says
We can only hope…..If there was just a way to eliminate the Koranvirus from the world . To eliminate Islam from the world.
mortimer says
This is what the foolish ayatollahs cannot figure out: ‘Truth will out.’
They foolishly assume that their taqiyya will continue to carry them through, even when everyone in Iran doesn’t believe a single thing they say anymore. Taqiyya doesn’t work on people who are expecting it.
Of course, they knew before February 19. Doctors and scientists who study and monitor such matters were blowing the whistle on the potential plague as early as November and December 2019.
Iranian protestors were seen previously bearing signs that read: ‘DEATH TO THE LIARS’.
You will see many more home-made signs like that on the streets of Iran in coming months.
jayell says
‘Truth will out.’…….but ‘truth’ is an entirely optional commodity to the islamic mind, a possible inconvenient obstacle to to their ambitions, usually circumvented by concocting ‘devious’ fabrications of varying degrees of implausibility. And if they’re caught out they’ll try to counter the opposition with cries of ‘islamophobia’ – which is simply yet another implausible devious concoction.
Buraq says
Covidiots!
Mike Stevens says
Europe should be vigilant for large numbers leaving Iran and planning to enter the continent illegally. Britain is their destination of choice. No longer reported nationally, but just a few days ago more boats full of Iranians were intercepted in the English Channel, and they had to be tested for the virus – diverting resources from Britain’s own people. More than 1000 ‘migrants’, mostly Iranian, crossed the English Channel in small boats last year.
The people smugglers are cunning, and Iranians have the money to pay them. It’s believed that the number of Iranians reaching Britain is partly because thousands flew into Serbia after the country began offering visa-free access to Iranians in August last year. It took months for the authorities to notice that flights were arriving full but leaving empty, and pressure from the EU forced Serbia to cancel the scheme. But by that time, thousands of Iranians were staying in hotels in Serbia, waiting for their opportunity to get to Britain.
They have always ignored the words “not needed, not wanted, not welcome”, but now, at a time when the country is in crisis, the very last thing it needs is more illegal immigrants – who, and they know it from those already here, as soon as they trigger the asylum process are housed, fed, given cash and, more importantly, free medical care.
jca reid says
The Truth will be out that Islam & its followers are backward, retarded idiots. They simply can’t handle the Truth.
A Gnostic Agnostic says
The truth is always in plain sight, as has been for 1400 years: how/why humanity still doesn’t realize Islam is the global root of Nazism/fascism/socialism is the greater tragedy here. The House of Islam religiously lies and manipulates: they hijack nations (like Germany) and start implementing their Nazi control schemes, just as they accuse the “Jews” of doing: their strategy.
The real truth that needs to be known is the House of Islam is the house of the real “Jew”.
They have been scapegoating their own crimes onto “Jews” for 1400 years, just as Muhammad did.
That is what the entire religion is about: blame Jews for everything they are themselves guilty of.
ELI says
The real truth is the some countries have been overwhelmed like Italy and Iran while others have been slow to react like the US and Spain while others have done very little like the Netherlands’ herd mentality scheme letting everyone catch the virus. The idea that Islamic countries are doing bad because of Islam is bullshit given the fact that most have closed their borders and implemented lockdowns. Nobody on here seems to give a shit and would rather extrapolate from the Iranian case.
Mateen Elass says
ELI, my article is specifically about Iran; I said nothing about other Muslim countries, nor sought to “extrapolate from the Iranian case.” There is no question for the objective observer that the COvid-19 disaster in Iran is due in large measure to factors that can be traced to the Shi’ite mentality of its leadership, and the top-down autocracy which makes anyone under the Supreme Leader afraid to take any salutary actions prior to Khamenei issuing an umbrella decree. As to other Islamic countries, time will tell whether they heed the practices of Western science or fall back on their religious superstitions and turn away from sound medical knowledge as the work of infidel devils.
Westman says
ELI. You’re making an equivalent assumption about everyone, “here”. Iran’s Mullahs seem to have cornered the market on incompetence, which is not a characteristic of the Iranian citizens. This incompetent leadership does not extend to all Islamic nations.
I had the privilege of teaching Physics to Iranian students in the 1970’s, before the “revolution” and found them wearing Western clothing, secular, of good behavior, studious, and almost indistinguishable from US students. What they wanted most was to have a life like the US students. Then the “revolution” came with cuckoomani’s demand for their repatriation. Next for them was being cannon fodder in the 8 years war.
Islamic countries, without oil, aren’t doing well economically nor do any Islamic nations contribute much to the world’s advancement – not through lack of potential – rather, through the mental smothering by Islam.
Whether the US is “late” in fighting covid19 is yet to be determined That’s the media trying to influence elections. Having the 3rd largest world population, then, the deaths/infections ratio, if the US has poor intervention, should be like Italy or Spain. Right now it isn’t even close by a factor of 10. We’ll see in the future how accurate are the Prophets Of Doom.
PRCS says
“The idea that Islamic countries are doing bad because of Islam”
Based upon their statements–and most of all their behaviour–I couldn’t disagree more.
But, of course, Muslim’s don’t have a lock on stupidity.
Catholic Cardinal Burke says faithful should attend Mass despite coronavirus
https://religionnews.com/2020/03/21/catholic-cardinal-burke-says-faithful-should-attend-mass-despite-coronavirus/
“Burke resides in Italy, which has experienced the deadliest outbreak of the coronavirus..”
The article was dated March 21.
gravenimage says
What claptrap from ELI. But this hardly surprises–all he has done since he arrived here is spout apologia for Islam.
And the idea that issues such as Mullahs urging Muslims to continue to visit shrines and Muslims violently reopening shrines that have been closed has nothing to do with Islam strains credulity, to put it mildly.
Ray Jarman says
Ali Khamenei should be tried for “Wars Against Humanity” at Den Haag. He is sitting by like Nero and watching the inhabitants, upon whom his predecessor forced himself, literally die in the streets of every town and village. If this does not constitute a war upon his own people, then the law may as well be abolished.
Rufluc says
But haven’t they been telling us ‘Kafirs’ that they have been given immunity by their ‘Allah’??
Or will they now argue that their ‘Allah’ wants them all to be martyrs??
James Lincoln says
Rufluc,
The mullahs propaganda will change like the weather – to make sure that they are never assigned blame…
Dawne Swift says
I would say that this really isn’t a problem for anybody in the west – except that the UK is still allowing flights in from Iran. Come on UK government – close the airports.
gravenimage says
+1
tim gallagher says
I would have said that all of Islam is total bullshit. Muhammad made up the revelations he was supposedly given by his sock puppet (whoever here at Jihad Watch came up with that, I love it), allah, and the bullshit rolled on for the next 1400 years. Muhammad either made it all up or was a madman, who was hallucinating and really did believe god was talking to him. So, whether it is about coronavirus or any other issue, Islam’s leaders will endlessly lie. It is all a big, but dangerous, murderous and evil lie. On the coronavirus, do people here at Jihad Watch think that China (or at least the rotten Chinese regime, although those disgusting hygiene practices at the so-called wet markets seem more like a hideous attitude of the Chinese people in general) will one day be held to account for the unbelievable damage that has been done to all the peoples of the world? I certainly hope so. This level of damage to all of our countries is staggering, all those deaths, all those jobs gone, all the businesses in big trouble, etc. I think China will need to be held to account somehow for this extraordinary level of damage, although I guess most of us were thinking that someday a vicious pandemic was going to come about. No doubt it is too early to discuss compensation, but I do hope China’s regime is held to account to some degree for the mayhem.
PRCS says
“Muhammad made up the revelations he was supposedly given by his sock puppet (whoever here at Jihad Watch came up with that, I love it), allah, and the bullshit rolled on for the next 1400 years.”
1. Assuming that this Muhammad guy (not another fella or other fellas–very likely not women–actually wrote it.
2. The ‘sock puppet’ line may have come from David Wood:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xSxt6aPz8A
tim gallagher says
Thanks for that, PRCS. I used to watch David Wood quite a bit and found him excellent and often very witty. Ridiculing Islam is a good, effective strategy. These days I tend only to check out Jihad Watch so thanks for putting the David Wood video there. Whoever originally came up with the sock puppet idea is brilliant. I guess ventriloquist’s dummy would do as well. I imagine Muhammad asking the sock puppet, “allah, is it alright for me, as a 50 year old man, to have sex with 8 year old Aisha?” knowing he’ll always give himself the right answer via the sock puppet. “Of course, Muhammad, you’re the perfect man, you’re my chosen one, go ahead and have sex with Aisha. Everything you do is just fine with me, you are perfect.” Actually, I tend to believe that Muhammad never even existed. I think Muhammad is just one more lie at the core of islam. The disturbing thing is that Islam, based on all these lies and so evil, still is thriving, what with over a billion followers. I guess thuggery and bullying are pretty effective for an ideology. Just on the brilliant concepts, I saw this graffiti in the early 1970’s when I was at university in Sydney and I thought it was brilliant, like the sock puppet idea. It went “God is dead – Nietzsche.” and just below it was “Nietzsche is dead – God”. I mentioned this to gravenimage quite a while back and she had heard it. Regardless of whether God exists or not, I thought it was brilliant. The first people that think of these gems are amazing.
Mateen Elass says
Tim, I saw the same bathroom graffiti at Stanford U., in CA in the 1970s. Given our proximity to San Francisco, there was one more line to the graffiti: “Nietzsche is God — the Grateful Dead.” Good for a laugh among all the “deadheads.”
PRCS says
You’re welcome.
And yes, Muhammad–or whomever–always knew the answer!
tim gallagher says
Thanks for the addition to the Nietzsche and God graffiti, Mateen. The introduction of the Grateful Dead is certainly witty and appropriate for that area of the world. That graffiti about Nietzsche has stuck with me ever since I saw it (at Macquarie University in Sydney) because I thought it was brilliant. With witty ideas like the Nietzsche one and, to my mind, Muhammad’s sock puppet, allah, that always tells him exactly what he wants to hear, I always think that the people who first came up with them are absolutely brilliant.
Mural says
Now, we are not supposed to debate about the origins of this Virus. As if there is a ‘debate’. The chinese mis-information ministry at work.
James Lincoln says
tim gallagher says,
“do people here at Jihad Watch think that “…the rotten Chinese regime … will one day be held to account for the unbelievable damage that has been done to all the peoples of the world?”
Probably not.
That being said, the United States government should send China the “full bill” for all of the costs associated with this preventable pandemic.
The Chinese government committed gross and wanton negligence.
Maybe one of our Jihad Watch attorneys could weigh in…
tim gallagher says
Thanks for the comment, James. Morally, I think China should pay a huge amount of compensation or reparation for this disaster. The effects are overwhelming, aren’t they. Apart form the deaths and sickness, here In Australia, there are endless people suddenly thrown out of work, huge queues out Centrelink offices where they sign up for unemployment benefits, businesses wrecked, etc. All the entertainment and sport gone. Everyone I talk to agrees that it is the weirdest and most disastrous thing any of us have gone through during our lifetimes. Of course, people who went through WWII have lived through far worse. I am almost 70 years old and this is the weirdest event I have lived through. Normal life has been wrecked. Seems to be the same in all countries. Our Prime Minister Morrison has said it could go on for 6 months or so. Australia is in a weird situation. Our economy depends on China to a huge extent. People are certainly saying now that we have become too dependent on China. We buy all types of manufactured goods from China, as most countries do. Since China’s economy has halted, I’ve heard many people in the construction industry say they can’t work because things they need that are manufactured in China aren’t available now. Australia sends iron ore, etc to China to fuel their manufacturing. So, in a way, if China is punished severely, harming its economy, Australia’s economy would go down the drain to a large extent. So I guess if China is punished, Australia will lose as well. The Chinese have also bought up a lot of Australian farming land, etc.Still, I do believe the Chinese regime should pay heavily for the chaos they have unleashed. In our part of the world, China is going to end up being a completely dominant giant. Unfortunately, it has a thuggish, bullying regime
gravenimage says
Iran: “Truth Will Out”
……………………….
Normally I laugh at the Mullah’s denial of reality, but this is just tragic.
OLD GUY says
You should always question following a guy called supreme leader. Thats a throw back to Hitlers attempt to dictate world dominance. We all know how that turned out.