Ortega: Iran Should Use Khamenei Fund to Combat Coronavirus
In response to Iranian officials who have called for lifting sanctions, a U.S. State Department spokesperson accused them of “lying and theft,” saying the leader of the Islamic Republic has billions available to combat coronavirus disease.
Morgan Ortega, U.S. State Department spokesperson, wrote on Twitter on Monday, April 30, 2020: “Stop the lying.” In this tweet, she accused Islamic Republic officials of theft and said: “If the Iranian regime needs money to fight coronavirus, it can use the billions that exist in Khamenei’s tax-exempt capital fund.”
The U.S. State Department spokesperson’s reference points to the vast amount of capital circulating through institutions controlled by Ayatollah Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic. These institutions include the “Execution Headquarters of the Imam’s Order.” In November 2013, Reuters revealed in a report the $95 billion financial empire of Ayatollah Khamenei. Since then, dozens of financial corruption cases with staggering figures have been exposed in Iran.
The Islamic Republic’s Foreign Minister stated in this post: “Iran is the only country that does not have access to all its resources to protect its citizens… and in direct confrontation with disease, it cannot easily purchase medical equipment and supplies.”
Javad Zarif has described the combination of sanctions and coronavirus as “a more dangerous enmity and a more terrible complication.” This comes as dozens of university professors and political and civil activists, through the release of a statement, have blamed Khamenei and his conspiracy-oriented approach for the escalating spread of coronavirus in Iran.
Zarif wrote in his note that the world needs “a moral will to resist American excess” to triumph over coronavirus. He referred to sanctions during the coronavirus period as “war crimes.”
This is while university professors and political and civil activists say that the Iranian government is the one that, by preventing international aid to the Iranian people, creating obstacles to the release of political prisoners, arresting journalists and cyber activists, promoting superstition on state television instead of raising awareness about the widespread outbreak of this disease, has fueled the high death toll from coronavirus (one Iranian death every ten minutes). They attributed the high number of coronavirus deaths to the initial cover-ups by the Islamic Republic government and its security forces.
Similarly, hundreds of Iranians inside the country, mostly doctors, nurses, healthcare workers, pharmacists and engineers as well as civil and social activists, along with hundreds of their colleagues and companions outside the country, sent a letter to the head of the World Health Organization, pointing to the Iranian government’s shortcomings in fighting the coronavirus outbreak, including the continuation of Mahan Airlines flights to Wuhan, the center of coronavirus, after the outbreak in China.
They also attributed the non-disclosure of coronavirus spread in Iran due to the February 11 rally and the parliamentary elections on March 1 as major causes of disease expansion and wrote: “The people of the religious city of Qom were the first to be infected with this virus, but Iran’s National Security Council made an irresponsible decision to deny the existence of this virus for more than three weeks due to the presence of their supporters in the Islamic Revolution anniversary rally and parliamentary elections, and through cover-up, fueled the spread of this disease and caused many citizens to become infected.”
Source: DW
