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Ongoing COVID-19 viral pandemic in Iran

Confirmed cases 1099

Confirmed cases 100499

Confirmed cases 500999

Confirmed cases 1,0009,999

Confirmed cases 10,000+

Last updated on 9 May 2020

Deaths

The COVID-19 pandemic in Iran is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus2 (SARS-CoV-2). On 19 February 2020, Iran reported its first confirmed cases of infections in Qom.[3] The virus may have been brought to the country by a merchant from Qom who had travelled to China.[4]

In response to the coronavirus the government cancelled public events and Friday prayers; closed schools, universities, shopping centres, bazaars, and holy shrines; and banned festival celebrations.[5][6] Economic measures were also announced to help families and businesses, and the pandemic is credited with compelling the government to make an unprecedented request for an emergency loan of five billion US dollars from the International Monetary Fund.[7] The government initially rejected plans to quarantine entire cities and areas, and heavy traffic between cities continued ahead of Nowruz, despite the government's intention to limit travel. The government later announced a ban on travel between cities following an increase in the number of new cases.[6][8] Government restrictions were gradually eased starting in April. The number of new cases fell to a low on 2 May, but increased again in May as restrictions were eased, with a new peak of cases reported on 4 June,[9] and new peaks in the number of deaths reported in July.[10] Despite the increase, the Iranian government stated that it had no option but to keep the economy open;[11] the economy of Iran was already affected by US sanctions, and its GDP fell by a further 15% due to the coronavirus pandemic by June 2020.[12]

Some early outside estimates of the numbers of COVID-19 deaths are much higher than those from government sources,[13][14][15][16] while the People's Mujahedin of Iran has consistently claimed a much higher death toll.[17] Leaked data suggest that 42,000 people had died with COVID-19 symptoms by 20 July compared to 14,405 reported that date.[18] The government has also been accused of cover-ups, censorship, and mismanagement.[19][20][21][4] However, the World Health Organization says that it has not seen problems with Iran's reported figures,[22] although a WHO official later said that due to limited testing in the early months, the number of cases reported in Iran may represent only about 20% of the real number until more tests could be conducted.[23] Later increase in the number of cases in May was attributed to increased testing by the Iranian government.[24] The official number of cases surpassed 200,000 with over 10,000 deaths recorded by June 2020.[25] President Rouhani, however, estimated that 25 million may have become infected by July 2020, considerably higher than the official count.[26] Confirmed COVID-19 cases in Iran account for around a quarter of all cases in the MENA region by mid-July.[27]

Multiple government ministers and senior officials have been diagnosed as SARS-CoV-2 positive, as well as 23 members of the Parliament (around 8% of all MPs) by 3 March.[28] At least 17 Iranian politicians and officials had died from the virus by 25 March.[29] Notable Iranians reported to have died from COVID-19 include Hadi Khosroshahi,[30] Mohammad Mirmohammadi, Hossein Sheikholeslam, Fatemeh Rahbar, Reza Mohammadi Langroudi,[31] Mohammad-Reza Rahchamani,[32] Nasser Shabani,[33] Hashem Bathaie Golpayegani,[34] Hamid Kahram,[35][36] and Khosrow Sinai.[37]

On 12 January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that a novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, that had been reported to the WHO on 31 December 2019.[38][39]

The case fatality ratio for COVID-19 has been much lower than that for SARS in 2003,[40][41] but the transmission has been much greater, creating a higher total death toll.[42][40]

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COVID-19 pandemic in Iran - Wikipedia

1. Iran Says U.S. Attempt to Seize Oil Cargo Is 'Act of Piracy'  Bloomberg
2. Tehran calls US seizure of Iranian oil an act of piracy  Al Jazeera English
3. Iran threatens to block snap nuclear inspections  Financial Times
4. We could restrict UN nuclear inspections, Iran warns West  DW (English)
5. Iran disowns minister's warning that it might seek nuclear weapons if cornered  The Times of Israel
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

The rest is here:
Iran Says U.S. Attempt to Seize Oil Cargo Is 'Act of Piracy' - Bloomberg

WASHINGTON - Irans prolonged economic recession and increasing regional isolation as its Islamist rulers mark 42 years in power is largely a result of those rulers maintaining ideological adherence to their 1979 revolution through a discordant power structure, according to some Iranian analysts.

Iranian authorities celebrated the anniversary of the revolution by mobilizing government supporters to stage a series of nationwide vehicle processions on Wednesday, rather than the traditional street rallies of previous anniversaries, due to coronavirus-related health restrictions.

Irans ruling Shiite clerics seized power in a months-long Islamic Revolution that culminated in the overthrow of the nations monarch, or shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, on Feb. 11, 1979. In a message issued Thursday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani praised the previous days processions as showing lasting scenes of cohesion, solidarity and the vigilance of the great nation of Iran at this critical time.

If you look away from Tehrans official narrative, the picture is very different, Alex Vatanka, Iran program director at the Middle East Institute, told VOA on Wednesday.

Iran right now is not doing well in terms of its economy, political situation, and sense of hopelessness that you find across civil society, Vatanka said. So for the majority of Iranians who feel their country is on the wrong track, today is not a day to rejoice. In fact, it is a day to regret what happened back in 1979.

Iran fell into recession in 2018 as toughening U.S. sanctions exacerbated long-standing government mismanagement of the economy. The IMFs latest world economic outlook published last monthestimates that Iran suffered a third consecutive year of recession in 2020, while projecting a return to GDP growth this year.

Islamist-ruled Iran, which has long called for the destruction of its regional foe, Israel, also found itself increasingly isolated from its neighbors last year. With the help of U.S. mediation, Israel signed peace agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, the first such deals between Israel and Gulf Arab nations who have long been wary of Tehrans support for pro-Iran militias involved in several regional conflicts.

Israels peace deals with the UAE and Bahrain expanded its relations to six of the 13 countries in the regions bordering and surrounding Iran. Israel already had relations with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Turkmenistan, but it still has no official ties with Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

In interviews with VOA Persian in recent days, some analysts in the Iranian diaspora blamed Irans recent setbacks in part on its Islamist rulers continuing to pursue the ideological goals of their 1979 revolution, including confrontation with the West.

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Animosity toward the U.S. was the essence of the Islamic Republics creation, said Ali Sadrzadeh, a Frankfurt-based analyst of Middle East politics. Washington had been a supporter of the shah ousted by Irans first Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Sadrzadeh said the incident that ruptured U.S.-Iran relations, the Khomeini-supported detention of 52 American hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by Islamist students from November 1979 to January 1981, has been used by Irans ruling clerics to inspire attacks on U.S. targets in the region ever since.

The U.S. imposed its toughest-ever sanctions on Iran under the administration of former President Donald Trump, who left office in January. Trump began tightening the sanctions in 2018, calling them part of a campaign of maximum pressure on Tehran to end objectionable behavior, including its alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons. Iran denies having such a goal.

President Joe Biden, who succeeded Trump, has said he will not ease the sanctions until Iran first returns to full compliance with a 2015 deal with world powers to curb its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump withdrew the U.S. from that deal in 2018, saying it was not tough enough on Iran, which retaliated a year later by starting to breach the deals nuclear activity limits.

The hostility of Irans clerical rulers toward Israel has been another factor in the Islamic Republics decline, said Amin Sophiamehr, an Iranian American politics researcher at Indiana University.

The unintended consequence of the Islamic Republics attempts to mobilize the Islamic world against a perceived common enemy, Israel, is that Iran became a threat (not just to Israel but also) to Arab countries and inevitably led to a broad Arab-Israeli alliance, Sophiamehr said.

Irans Islamist rulers have stuck to their anti-Israel and anti-American policies because agitating against external enemies has been crucial for maintaining power in a theocratic country, enabling those rulers to mobilize supporters and suppress opponents, he added.

The analysts who spoke to VOA also blamed Irans recession on its complex ruling system, created by an Islamist constitution that grants ultimate power to a supreme leader who oversees a variety of elected and unelected institutions that compete for influence and benefits.

Reza Ghorashi, an economics professor at Stockton College in New Jersey, said Irans top military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has fought with the other governmental institutions about who gets access to Irans oil revenue, the main national income source that has been hit hard by the U.S. sanctions.

So instead of pursuing policies to develop the nations other resources, oil is the only sector in which Iran has added value by extracting and exporting the commodity, Ghorashi said.

Djamchid Assadi, a Paris-based professor at the Burgundy School of Business, said another factor in Irans economic weakness is the adherence of its Islamist rulers to the revolutionary goal of supporting the downtrodden. He said Irans ruling institutions have used that principle to justify taking control over most of the economy and suppressing the property rights of others.

Given that the institutions of Irans market economy have collapsed and the regime does not intend to repair them, I see no prospect of the economy getting better in the future, Assadi said.

This article originated in VOAs Persian Service.

Editor's note: This article had been updated to correct Amin Sophiamehr's title.

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On Revolution Anniversary, Analysts Blame Iran's Islamist Ideology for National Decline - Voice of America

Reza Ramezannejad, an energy company executive who is active on Iran social media, pinned a photo of a nuclear site to his profile page in January and wrote, God willing, soon there will front-page news that Iran tested nuclear warheads on domestic missiles.

In Israel, which considers Iran its most potent foe, many Israeli leaders, particularly Mr. Netanyahu, had welcomed Mr. Trumps repudiation of the nuclear deal. They have also expressed alarm that Mr. Biden appears ready to re-enter the accord, arguing that it is too weak.

Mr. Biden and his subordinates have argued that Mr. Trumps strategy was counterproductive because Iran is no longer complying with the deals restrictions, effectively shortening the timeline Iran needs to build a nuclear weapon.

The assessment released Tuesday by the intelligence division of the Israeli Defense Forces, along with an earlier assessment by the Mossad, Israels intelligence agency, suggests that Iran remains at least two years away from such capability.

Israeli intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity when discussing Irans nuclear activities, said they believed that Iran had amassed uranium sufficient to build almost three nuclear bombs if the uranium were enriched to weapons-grade level. The officials said such enrichment was theoretically attainable in about five months.

But the Israeli intelligence assessments said Iran still lacked the scientific and technical wherewithal to make a weapon. One senior Israeli commander, briefing journalists in Israel, said the assassination in November of Irans top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, had delivered a severe blow.

Iran has blamed Israel, abetted by the United States, for the killing of Mr. Fakhizadeh, long identified by American and Israeli intelligence services as the guiding figure behind what they have called the Weapon Group, a covert effort to design an atomic warhead. Iran has said Mr. Fakhrizadeh devoted himself to peaceful applications of nuclear science.

Reporting was contributed by Pranshu Verma, Michael Crowley and Isabel Kershner.

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Iran Suggests It May Seek Nuclear Weapons, in New Escalation of Threats - The New York Times

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Irans relationship with a majority of its neighbors is strained. As a Shia-governed state, the country has struggled to attain influence on the world stage. The Iranian governments hard-line religious rhetoric, as well as the Iran-Saudi Arabia proxy conflict, has done little to alleviate Irans economic and geopolitical challenges.

Yet despite tense relations with its Saudi-aligned Sunni counterparts, Irans relationship with Indonesia, the largest Sunni state by population, remains remarkably friendly.

Resource-rich, populous, and relatively influential in its region, Indonesia is an alluring ally for both Iran and Saudi Arabia. However, Indonesia has always been cautious in picking sides between these two rival powers, an outgrowth of its long-held foreign policy preference for non-alignment.

Indonesias adherence to its inclusive founding principles of Pancasila has also helped maintain a degree of religious openness, tempering hardline Islamic beliefs and allowing religious minorities some leeway in conducting their practices. In recent years, however, this has begun to change. A rise in Islamic conservatism in Indonesia has begun to trickle into policy, resulting in the increased persecution of religious minorities and erosion of religious freedoms.

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I always knew people thought I was different as a member of the Shia community, said Syahar Banu, an NGO worker who grew up in a Shia community in East Java, but it wasnt until the previous president Susilo Yudhoyono came to power that I became scared to tell people I was Shia or say my name.

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The Indonesian government has been eager to attract investment from Saudi Arabia. The Saudi monarchy has spent billions of dollars in building mosques and religious universities across Indonesia, as well as providing scholarships for Indonesian students to study in the Middle East. The fruits of Saudi investment have been seen in the increased popularity in its puritan and conservative religious practices among Indonesian Muslims.

For Iran, maintaining a stable relationship with Indonesia remains increasingly important. Sanctioned by the United States and an underdog in the Islamic world, Iran has increasingly found itself isolated on the world stage. It has attempted to counterbalance U.S. pressure by boosting its diplomatic and economic relations with Southeast Asia.

This has meant that Iran has had to ditch its zealous religious speeches, popularized by Khomeini in the 1980s, and take a more pragmatic approach, prioritizing trade and economic alliances instead of revolutionary activism.

So far, its paid off. Irans relationship with Indonesia has remained friendly. Both countries have been eager to put their differing religious views to one side the Sunni-Shia schism can still determine alliances in the Islamic world and focus on maintaining economic cooperation. Leaders from both countries have engaged in diplomatic visits, Iran has stayed out of criticizing Saudi investment in the archipelago, and in return, Indonesia has supported Irans right to obtain nuclear weapons.

The role religion plays in Irans ties to Indonesia is important, yet seldom publicly acknowledged due to rising anti-Shia sentiment within Indonesia.

Generally speaking, Iran is realistic and aware that many Indonesians will not convert to Shia Islam, said Dicky Sofjan, a core doctoral faculty at the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies at Universitas Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta, but they do know that many Indonesian academics have sympathies with the Iranian revolution and the intellectual thinking behind it.

Whilst Iran officially claims to have no interest in spreading its religious ideologies in Indonesia, this isnt necessarily true. There is a rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran in Indonesia, said Andreas Harsono, a researcher for the rights group Human Rights Watch. There is an active effort by Iran, especially after the Iranian Revolution, to promote and to back up Shiism in Indonesia. Most Shia groups get support from Iran.

Iran has managed to fulfill some of these religious objectives through institutions such as the Jakarta Islamic Center (ICC), which function as a hub for translations of Iranian texts and other religious studies, and facilitate scholarships for Indonesian Shia to study in Iran.

Remarkably, the ICC, whose headquarters is indiscreetly clad in elaborate blue Persian tiling, sits just a five-minute walk away from LIPIA, one of the largest Saudi-funded universities in Indonesia and a major center for Saudi proselytization.

Iran can distance itself from institutes such as the ICC because they are managed not by the executive branch of the Iranian government, but instead operate directly under the Office of the Supreme Leader of Iran. This allows them to act as de facto centers for religious evangelization without officially being tied to the Iranian diplomatic and political establishment.

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For Indonesia, a relationship with Iran could be increasingly difficult to maintain. Islamic conservatism within the country is growing. Indonesian politicians, which increasingly have to project an image of piety in order to appeal to a growing conservative Sunni base, will become stricter on religious minorities, including the Indonesian Shia.

One such example can be seen in the Indonesian vice president Maruf Amin, a 75-year-old conservative Sunni cleric. Amin, who was chosen to bolster President Joko Widodos religious credentials, is the former head of both the Nahdlatul Ulama and the Indonesian Council of Ulama (MUI), the countrys top clerical body. During his chairmanship, the MUI drafted numerous fatwa and decrees against minority groups, including the Shia.

Indonesias Ministry of Religious Affairs recently released an app, and hotline service, that allows users to report individuals suspected of religious heresy. The Shia are listed as a dangerous group, promoting deviant teachings.

Iran has kept silent on these issues. But according to Andreas Harsono, who was arrested for reporting on the exile of the Shia community in Maduro in 2012, persecution of the Shia has been a source of concern for Tehran. After I was arrested, a former vice president of Iran, whom I had never met, sent me a personal Christmas card out of gratitude, said Harsono. These attacks troubled them.

Whilst Indonesian-Iranian relations have stood the test of time, Indonesias political identity is at a crossroads. Its relationship with its counterparts in the Islamic world, and with its religious minorities, will be an important indicator of just which direction it chooses to go.

Maxwell Lowe is an Australian freelance journalist. He is currently studying for a Masters of National Security Policy at the Australian National University and holds a Bachelor of International Security Studies degree.

Originally posted here:
Khomeini in the Archipelago: Iranian Interests and Influence in Indonesia - The Diplomat