Tehran is lying to the international community about the number of citizens infected and killed by coronavirus and imprisoning dissenters for speaking out, the U.S. State Department tells the Washington Free Beacon.
“The regime has imprisoned dozens of Iranians for sharing statistics and forced hospital officials across Iran to falsify the number of cases and deaths,” said State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus.
The Iranian regime claims the numbers of those infected and dead stand at 24,811 and 1,934, respectively. But the United States and other observers say there are far more casualties. In a bid to keep the actual infection rate and death toll secret, Iranian officials have resorted to violence and subterfuge. Their efforts include enlisting U.S. allies in a campaign to weaken the Trump administration’s tough economic sanctions on the country, a move that could provide the regime with billions in cash.
“We can be sure that the same regime that lied about shooting down a passenger jet and that still hasn’t revealed the number of protesters killed last November is not being transparent with the number of cases and deaths from coronavirus today,” Ortagus said, referring to Iran’s downing of a commercial airliner last year that killed everyone on board. – READ MORE
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