Iran is being hard hit with coronavirus. The epicenter is its holy city of Qom, a pilgrimage destination for the world’s Shia. Rather than take a scientific approach to contain the virus, the regime is focusing on Islam and its routine propaganda against “the enemy,” and is concentrating on protecting the image of its religious leaders:
The Islamic Republic’s approach to preventing the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Iran is a religious-security approach rather than a scientific-functional one….The Islamic Republic’s leader, President and senior clerics see themselves as the representatives of God and the imams who are saints and thus innocent. They are not willing to acknowledge that there are problems for which they do not have a solution, and thus should follow what experts say.
Already President Trump has been blamed…
“The enemy wants to instill fear in people’s hearts, make Qom look like an unsafe city and to take revenge for all its defeats,” said Hojjat ol-Eslam Seyyed Mohammad Saeedi, the Friday Prayer Imam and Custodian of the Shrine of Masoumeh. “Trump will die frustrated in his wish to see Qom defeated.”
“Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has condemned the spread of the virus as a conspiracy by the enemy to curb the turnout in last week’s Majles elections and President Hassan Rouhani characterized it as ‘the enemy’s political propaganda.'” In so doing, Iran foments the already burning hatred its loyalists feel toward what its leaders refer to as “The Great Satan” America, while deflecting responsibility.
Iran is now the central location for the spread of Coronavirus in the region. Many of the country’s officials have already been infected, including vice president Masoumeh Ebtekar, who was also the regime’s spokeswoman during the 1979 US embassy hostage-taking. She “was dubbed ‘Mary’ and ‘Screaming Mary’ during the 1979 US embassy hostage crisis for her nightly televised rants.”
Mojtaba Zolnour, a member of Parliament from Qom and head of Parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee; Mahmoud Sadeghi, an outspoken member of Parliament from Tehran; Iraj Harirchi, the deputy health minister who had been leading the effort to contain the coronavirus; Morteza Rahmanzadeh, the mayor of a Tehran district; Dr. Mohamad Reza Ghadir, head of coronavirus management in Qom and director of the city’s state medical university.
A prominent cleric, Hadi Khosroshahi, who served as Iran’s ambassador to the Vatican, has died from the virus.
“Will Islamic Republic Surrender to Coronavirus, Clerics Or Doctors?,” by Morad Veisi, Radio Farda, February 28, 2020:
The Islamic Republic’s approach to preventing the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Iran is a religious-security approach rather than a scientific-functional one.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has condemned the spread of the virus as a conspiracy by the enemy to curb the turnout in last week’s Majles elections and President Hassan Rouhani characterized it as “the enemy’s political propaganda.”
Senior clerics in Qom have prevented hygienic and health care measures in that city. While public health officials demanded the closure of busy pilgrimage sites in Qom and Mashhad, the clerics in charge of the shrines obstructed the attempts to control the virus. They have even resisted the decisions of the Provincial Security Council and disease control task force.
But why clerics in 19 out of the 31 Iranian provinces have prevented disease control although they are aware of the dangerous consequences of the epidemic and why they insist on their religious-security approach….
Now, Coronavirus has challenged the efficiency of the Islamic Republic. But a virus cannot be arrested, tried and forced to confess against itself, nor can the Islamic Republic condemn it for heresy. Clerics cannot eliminate Coronavirus in the same way they got rid of intellectuals and political activists. The clerics have nothing to defend themselves with against the virus and the people know that. Nonetheless, clerics are not going to surrender to doctors and experts….
The Islamic Republic’s leader, President and senior clerics see themselves as the representatives of God and the imams who are saints and thus innocent. They are not willing to acknowledge that there are problems for which they do not have a solution, and thus should follow what experts say. From the point of view of the leader, the President and senior clerics, such a practice would undermine the supremacy of the clergy in the country’s political system. It will also undermine the fundamentals of the economic regime that is based not only on donating to the clerics but also allowing them to control large chunks of the economy.
This is exactly why the leader and the president attribute Coronavirus to the enemies. At lower levels, clerics in charge of religious sites in Qom and Mashhad will not give in to the doctors’ call for suspending some religious rituals such as Friday Prayer gatherings. Theoretically, this is against what clerics have preached at the seminaries for hundreds of years.
Some religious scholars believe that in certain matters people should listen to experts, in this case doctors. But now that the Health Minister has officially declared on behalf of the disease-control task force that gatherings should be limited in pilgrimage sites for safety concerns, the clerics in Qom find it hard to accept the experts’ views and obstruct their measures. As far as they understand, shutting down these places closes the clerics’ business and sets a dangerous precedence for the future….
In order to conceal its inefficiency, the regime has forced the media to propagate its religious-security approach. But social media has put an end to the state-controlled TV’s monopoly on news. Twitter, Instagram, Telegram and other social media platforms have given everyone access to news that can expose misinformation….