According to data released last week, the Islamic Republic has had over 10,000 reported cases of coronavirus—more in absolute numbers than any country save China and Italy. Official statistics likely downplay the numbers, and there are credible if unconfirmed reports of mass graves being dug for the disease’s victims. Mehdi Khalaji examines the consequences:
The epidemic hit Iran . . . just after two major domestic crises—the gasoline protest movement that began in November, and the military’s downing of an airliner full of Iranian citizens in January—and just before the February parliamentary election. Moreover, ground zero was Qom, the ideological capital and spiritual center for Shiite Muslims worldwide—including many potential disease carriers from China.
In addition to fostering a general climate of instability, the [prior] crises made much of the Iranian public instantly suspicious toward the government’s statements, statistics, and containment strategies in reaction to the virus. . . . One practical consequence of such mistrust is that citizens are now ignoring the recommendations issued by the political and religious establishment as much as they can, instead listening to their own instincts or consulting alternative sources.
The dangerously irresponsible decisions that authorities have made about preventive measures in Qom provide a window into the regime’s religiously superstitious orientation. Both Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the clerical establishment he controls have opposed the medical recommendations given to them by the Ministry of Health, including calls for setting up quarantines in Qom. They tend to justify their resistance by touting the city’s divine immunity, even going so far as to encourage people to visit the local shrine of Fatima Masoumeh and pray for the sick to receive miraculous cures.
Read more on Washington Institute for Near East Policy: https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/the-coronavirus-in-iran-part-1-clerical-factors