Iranian COVID Data Leaked, Protests Mount

August 30, 2020

Public calls for anti-regime protests have tripled in Eastern Iran in recent weeks, as the regime’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the continued economic malaise across the country have left Iranians more desperate than ever. The police chief of the northeastern Khorasan Razavi province admitted in an interview to the heightened unrest in his jurisdiction, including the persistence of “illegal” protests, but assured viewers of state-run television that “there has not been a single day when law enforcement and border guards were not fully prepared.” He was referring to daily protests in the city of Mashhad, Iran’s second-most populous city after the capital of Tehran. The mostly peaceful street demonstrations have obviously concerned Iranian authorities, as Mashhad is a popular destination for Iranian pilgrims and vacationers, as well as visitors from bordering Afghanistan and Tajikistan. A railway workers’ strike in the northwest of Iran for lack of pay further underscores the Iranian regime’s precarious position as the economy and health care infrastructure continue to falter.

The protests in Iran come amidst public fallout from leaked COVID-19 data that paint a much more ominous picture than the Iranian regime will publicly admit. The BBC received information from an “anonymous source” within the Iranian government that the number of coronavirus deaths inside Iran since the beginning of the pandemic is more than double the official statistics. Iran is currently reporting around 21,000 deaths related to COVID-19 since the beginning of February, but the BBC source reports a figure more than double that number. The total number of positive coronavirus cases was revealed to be closer to a half-million, rather than the official statistics of around 300,000, according to lists of hospital admissions provided by the source. Regime opposition groups have claimed for month that the government is vastly underreporting the true number of cases, placing the total number of deaths closer to 100,000.

The combination of a failing economy, mismanagement of the pandemic and a series of mysterious explosions at sensitive military sites has renewed the fervor of street demonstrations which numbered in the millions last November before being brutally repressed in a crackdown that killed 1500 people. Star Iranian wrestler Navid Afkari was recently condemned to death for his part in street protests in 2018, having been forced under torture to confess to the alleged murder of a government agent. A popular athlete in Iran, Afkari’s sentence has caused a wave of public anger across the country. Besides the crackdown on peaceful protestors, the Iranian regime’s persecution of Christians continues across the country as well. A new law outlawing digital Christian ministry is being used to imprison those who publish Christian content online, as well as those who access it. Two Christian converts from Islam, Shirku Siavoshi and Mehdi Ibrahimzadeh, were recently arrested in opposite sides of Iran and reportedly taken to Iranian Revolutionary Guard installations, where they reported being beaten and interrogated.

We ask our global family to be in urgent prayer for Iranian believers and their nation. Iran is entering a precarious time, with immense pressure being exerted on its Islamic government from both inside and outside the country, prompting its radical leadership to react with increasing brutality as its grip on power is threatened. We pray that the Spirit would blind the eyes of the authorities to His work amongst the people of Iran, as the gospel continues to bear fruit there. We pray that Iranian believers facing persecution would be granted divine joy, peace and courage to endure. We pray for world leaders to be granted wisdom in their dealings with the Islamic republic. We pray that the demonic forces which are stoking conflict and war would be restrained, and that their schemes and plots would be exposed and thwarted. You can also directly support the underground believers in Iran and their labor to reach that troubled nation with the gospel by clicking on the graphic above.

Maranatha.