Ortagus: Iran should use Khamenei fund to fight coronavirus

In response to Iranian officials who have called for the lifting of sanctions, the US State Department spokesperson accused them of "lying and stealing" and said that the Leader of the Islamic Republic has billions at his disposal to deal with the coronavirus.

“Stop lying,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus tweeted on Monday, March 30, to Iranian officials. She accused Iranian officials of theft, saying, “If the Iranian regime needs money to fight the coronavirus, it can use the billions in Khamenei’s tax-exempt capital protection fund.”

The US State Department spokesperson is referring to the huge amount of capital in circulation in institutions subordinate to Ayatollah Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic. Among these institutions is the “Imam’s Command Executive Headquarters.” In November 2013, Reuters reported on Ayatollah Khamenei’s $95 billion financial empire. Since then, dozens of corruption cases involving staggering figures have been uncovered in Iran.

The Islamic Republic's Foreign Minister said in this post: "Iran is the only country that does not have access to all its resources to protect its citizens... and in the face of the disease, it cannot easily purchase medical equipment and supplies."

Javad Zarif has called the combination of sanctions and COVID-19 “a more dangerous enemy and a more formidable complication.” This comes at a time when dozens of university professors and political and civil activists have issued a statement blaming Khamenei and his conspiracy-oriented outlook for the exponential spread of COVID-19 in Iran.

In his note, Zarif wrote that the world “needs a moral will to defy US excesses” to defeat the coronavirus. He referred to sanctions during the coronavirus era as a “war crime.”

Meanwhile, university professors and political and civil society activists say that it is the Iranian government that has fueled the spread of the disease and the increase in the death toll from the disease by preventing international aid to the Iranian people, obstructing the release of political prisoners, and arresting journalists and cyberspace activists, and by promoting superstition on the Iranian Broadcasting System (IRBS) instead of raising awareness about the widespread spread of the disease and the increase in the death toll from the disease. They attribute the high death toll from the coronavirus (one Iranian dies every ten minutes) to the initial cover-ups by the Islamic Republic government and its security forces.

Also, hundreds of Iranians inside the country, mostly doctors, nurses, healthcare professionals, pharmacists, and engineers, as well as civil and social activists, along with several hundred of their colleagues and companions abroad, have written a letter to the head of the World Health Organization, pointing out the Iranian government's shortcomings in combating the coronavirus outbreak, including the continuation of Mahan Air flights to Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus, after the outbreak in China.

They also considered the failure to publicly disclose the spread of the coronavirus in Iran due to the 12th Bahman march and the elections for the Islamic Consultative Assembly on 13th Esfand to be one of the main reasons for the spread of the disease, and wrote: "The people of the religious city of Qom were the first to be infected with this virus, but the National Security Council of the Islamic Republic of Iran, with its irresponsible decision to deny the existence of the virus for more than three weeks due to the presence of its supporters in the march on the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution and the elections for the Islamic Consultative Assembly, fueled the spread of the disease by concealing it and causing the infection of many citizens."

Source: DW