DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran closed a newspaper Monday after criticizing a former member of the national group of coronavirus brokers, saying the consequences of the epidemic for the country could be only 20 times higher than the official figures, official news firm IRNA reported.
“The Jahan-e Sanat newspaper closed today for publishing an interview on Sunday,” the paper’s editor-in-chief, Mohammadreza Saadi, told IRNA.
On Sunday, the newspaper published an interview with Mohammadreza Mahboubfar, in which he said: “The figures announced through officials on instances and deaths of coronavirus constitute 5% of the country’s actual tolls.”
Health Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari rejected Mahboubfar’s comments and said she is not a member of the national coronavirus control organization, according to IRNA.
It is unclear whether she meant that he had never been a member of the body, as the newspaper claims.
Mahboubfar, an epidemiologist, told the newspaper that the government detected the coronavirus in January, while Iran announced its first infections and two deaths from the virus on February 19.
“There was no dataArray transparency … The government has provided only technical figures of Array … for considerations about (their impact) on elections and commemorations of the anniversary of the revolution,” Mahboubfar told the newspaper.
Reuters reported in April that the government refrained from pronouncing the coronavirus in Iran, fearing it would disturb the public before February’s parliamentary elections and the celebrations of the 1979 Islamic revolution anniversary.
Iran is one of the countries most affected by COVID-19 in the Middle East, with 18,616 killed and 328,844 cases inflamed.
Some experts and legislators have questioned the accuracy of Iran’s official coronavirus figures. A report from studies by the Iranian parliament in mid-April warned that the number of coronavirus victims could be almost double what was announced through the Ministry of Health.
He said the official figures for Iranian coronavirus were based only on the number of deaths in hospitals and those who had already tested positive for coronavirus.
Writing through Parisa Hafezi; Editing via Angus MacSwan
All quotes were delayed for at least 15 minutes. See here for a complete list of transactions and delays.
© 2020 Reuters. All rights are reserved.