Iran Closes Key Religious Sites as Virus Death Toll Hits 853

By Amir Havasi

Iran on Monday closed four key Shiite pilgrimage sites to stop a coronavirus outbreak that has killed over 850 people out of nearly 15,000 cases recorded in the country.

The holy shrines of Imam Reza in Mashhad, Fatima Masumeh in Qom and Shah Abdol-Azim in Tehran were shut until further notice "upon the orders of the anti-coronavirus headquarters and the health minister," state television said.

Qom's Jamkaran mosque also said it would close its doors, the official IRNA news agency reported.

People angry over the decision protested outside Qom's Fatima Masumeh shrine, some chanting "religious slogans" and damaging the entrance door, IRNA reported.

The coronavirus outbreak has spread to all of Iran's 31 provinces since it first emerged last month in Qom, which is among the worst-hit regions along with Tehran and Khorasan Razavi, where Mashhad is located.

Health Minister Saeid Namaki said the shrines and "other holy sites" had agreed to close until after the New Year holidays, which start on Friday.

The move came after Iran said the COVID-19 disease killed another 129 people, taking the country's overall toll to 853 dead out of 14,991 cases of infection.

"Our plea is that everyone take this virus seriously and in no way attempt to travel to any province," health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said.

The disease has now killed at least 12 Iranian politicians and officials, both sitting and former, and infected 13 more who have either been quarantined or are being treated.

The latest was Ayatollah Hashem Bathayi Golpayegani, a member of the Assembly of Experts—an 88-strong body of clerics that appoints and monitors the country's supreme leader.

The ayatollah, who was 78, died two days after testing positive for the disease and being hospitalized, state news agency IRNA reported.

The novel coronavirus also claimed the life of prominent economist and political activist Fariborz Rais-Dana on Monday.

A prolific writer with a PhD from the London School of Economics, he had spent time in prison after being convicted of spreading propaganda against the system.

Prisoners Released

Iran has been scrambling to contain the rapid spread of COVID-19 since the authorities announced the first two deaths in Qom on February 19.

It has since shut schools, postponed cultural and sports events and discouraged travel ahead of the New Year holidays.

Iran has also cancelled the main weekly Friday prayers, closed parliament and put off the second round of legislative elections.

In addition, the judiciary has sent 83,000 inmates on temporary leave from jails, apparently over concerns of the virus spreading in the prison system.

But Iran has yet to impose a lockdown, and the official number of deaths and infections has continued to grow exponentially.

According to the health ministry, the rising trend is due to the increasing number of tests being carried out.

It says many patients started showing symptoms days after they were infected.

Official tolls, which are given every 24 hours, have usually lagged behind reports by local media and have sometimes been contradicted by provincial authorities.

Confusion

President Hassan Rouhani reiterated his call for people to refrain from travelling.

Speaking in a videoconference with Iran's anti-coronavirus headquarters in Tehran, he expressed hopes the outbreak would soon be brought under control.

"God willing, this year-end will go down in history... as days of victory over this dangerous virus," he said.

But the head of a Tehran hospital said he was doubtful the virus could be contained without more stringent measures.

"We are told by the people that you want us to stay home, but how can we when (government) organisations are not closed?" said Alireza Zali of the Shahid Beheshti medical university.

"We should not be confusing people," he was quoted as saying by ISNA news agency, adding that many vulnerable groups such as pregnant women and those with autoimmune diseases were not given leave from work.

The health ministry's latest figures showed that Tehran province had the highest number of new infections with 200 cases.

The central province of Isfahan followed with 118 cases, with Mazandaran in the north of Iran coming next with 96.

Photo: IRNA

Iran Says Two More Deaths Among 13 New Coronavirus Cases

Iran on Friday reported two more deaths among 13 new cases of coronavirus in the Islamic republic, bringing the total number of deaths to four and infections to 18.

The COVID-19 outbreak first appeared in Iran on Wednesday, when officials said it killed two elderly people in the Shiite holy city of Qom.

They were the first confirmed deaths from the disease in the Middle East.

"Thirteen new cases have been confirmed," Iran's health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said. "Unfortunately two of them have lost their lives."

The newly reported cases included "seven in Qom, four in Tehran, and two in Gilan" on the Caspian Sea coast, Jahanpour tweeted.

"Most of the cases are still either Qom residents" or were people who had come from Qom to other provinces "in recent days and weeks", he added.

He did not comment on the suspected origins of the outbreak in the Islamic republic.

He added that Iran had so far received from the World Health Organization four shipments of medical kits used to detect COVID-19.

Qom is a centre for Islamic studies and tourists, attracting scholars from Iran and beyond.

However, a government official said the first two people who died of the disease had not left Iran.

Spread in Mideast

Following the announcement of those deaths, Iraq on Thursday clamped down on travel to and from the Islamic republic.

The health ministry in Baghdad said people from Iran had been barred from entering Iraq "until further notice".

Kuwait's national carrier Kuwait Airways also announced it would suspend all of its flights to Iran.

Iran was holding a parliamentary election on Friday, with state media saying that the coronavirus had not been able to dampen "the revolutionary zeal of Qom's people" to turn out to vote.

The new coronavirus has now claimed the lives of 13 people outside mainland China.

The United Arab Emirates last month became the first country in the Middle East to report cases of the coronavirus strain. It now has nine cases.

Egypt has also reported one case.

Israel on Friday became the latest country in the region to confirm a case of coronavirus, in a citizen who flew home from Japan after being quarantined on a stricken cruise ship.

Iran's health sector has been hit by sanctions imposed by the United States since Washington withdrew in 2018 from a landmark nuclear deal between the Islamic republic and world powers.

Photo: IRNA

Three New Coronavirus Cases in Iran After Two Deaths

Iran has confirmed three new coronavirus cases following the deaths of two elderly men, the health ministry told AFP on Thursday, as Iraq banned travel to and from its neighbor.

The pair who died were elderly Iranian citizens and residents of the city of Qom. They were the first confirmed deaths from the COVID-19 virus in the Middle East.

Health ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpour said two of the new cases were also in Qom and the other was in Arak, south of the holy city.

"In total there were five cases... of which two have been fatal," he said.

Qom is a centre for Islamic studies and tourists, attracting scholars from Iran and beyond. However, a government official said the deceased men had not left Iran.

Following the announcement of the deaths, Iraq on Thursday clamped down on travel to and from the Islamic republic, with Iraq's health ministry announcing people in Iran were barred from entering the country "until further notice".

"Iranians are prohibited from entering (Iraq)," a senior official told AFP, adding that border crossings with Iran are now closed, with only returning Iraqis allowed to pass through.

These Iraqis will be examined and, if necessary, they will be placed "in quarantine for 14 days", the health ministry said.

Iraqi nationals are also not allowed to travel to Iran, according to the ministry.

The border closure followed a backlash against a Wednesday announcement of visa waivers for Iranian nationals wishing to travel to Iraq by the interior ministry.

Iraqis took to social media using the hashtag "close the border" and local officials called for a ban on the entry of goods and people through various border crossings with the Islamic republic.

Iraqi airports are already screening travellers for the virus and national carrier Iraqi Airways has suspended flights to Iran.

Each year, millions of Iranian pilgrims visit holy Shiite sites in Iraq, providing the Iraqi state with significant revenue.

Earlier Thursday, Iran's government spokesman Ali Rabiei said Tehran would set up a top-level body of government and defence officials to fight the virus' spread, according to state news agency IRNA.

"We, however, need global action (by authorities) and the cooperation of all citizens," Rabiei said on Twitter.

‘Hid the Truth'

The deaths in Iran were reported by local media on Wednesday, just hours after Tehran said there were two cases in the country.

On social media, several people accused the government of keeping silent to prevent panic ahead of Friday's parliamentary elections.

"Just four hours separated the announcement that two compatriots were infected... and their deaths," journalist Javad Heydarian tweeted.

"This signifies that the virus had been around for some days but they hid the truth."

Public confidence in government pronouncements has plummeted since the downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane on January 8 that killed 176 people.

The government initially denied responsibility, but later admitted the plane had been fired on due to "human error" and blamed a jittery missile operator.

The culture ministry has asked local media to only publish official information from government officials and denounced what it claimed was a proliferation of fake news on social media regarding the virus.

Since December, the novel coronavirus has killed 2,118 people in China—the epicenter of the epidemic—excluding Hong Kong and Macau.

Elsewhere in the world, the virus has killed 11 people and spread across some 25 countries.

Photo: IRNA

Iran Backlash After Top Cleric Meets Reformists

A hardline member of Iran's powerful Guardian Council was facing a backlash on Sunday after criticizing one of the country's top religious figures for meeting with reformist politicians.

The dispute reflects the diversity of views within Iran's religious elite and the fact that, well after the 1979 Islamic revolution, some senior Shiite clerics fiercely defend their independence.

The controversy started a fortnight ago when 90-year-old Grand Ayatollah Musa Shobairi Zanjani—considered one of the highest religious authorities and a "marja" (or "source of emulation") for huge numbers of Shiite Muslims—met with ex-president Mohammad Khatami and other members of the reformist camp.

Khatami was president from 1997 to 2005 but has since fallen foul of the system, especially after supporting mass protests in 2009, and is banned from leaving the country or appearing in official media.

That meeting drew a shocked response from another leading ayatollah, Mohammad Yazdi, who leads an influential conservative clerical association in Qom, regarded as Iran's religious capital.

Yazdi is one of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's appointees to the Guardian Council, a supervisory body that has a veto over all parliamentary laws.

"Following the publication of pictures on social media of you alongside some problematic individuals who have no respect for the system of the Islamic republic and the supreme leader, I hereby state that this issue has caused concern and upset among followers and in the seminaries," Yazdi wrote in an open letter published by the Jamaran news site.

"I would like to remind you that your status and respect are tied to your respect for the ruling Islamic system, the leadership and the status of marjas... and take steps to ensure such matters are not repeated again," he added.

To criticise a grand ayatollah in this way was considered beyond the pale for many observers.

Abbas Salehi, minister of Islamic culture and guidance, tweeted late Saturday: "We must be careful not to weaken the pure marjas under the banner of preserving the system, and not spoil Shiite historical heritage."

At least one ayatollah resigned from Yazdi's religious association in protest, while another, Ayatollah Hadavi Tehrani, said the "impolite" letter to Zanjani had caused "sadness and sorrow".

Responses continued to come from many senior officials and commentators on Sunday.

"We Shiites are proud that our noble marjas have never gotten permission from any power but glorious God and have not been bound by the constraints of any political and economic bodies," tweeted Elisa Hazrati, a member of parliament and managing director of the reformist Etemad newspaper.

Photo Credit: IRNA