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Ayatollah Khamenei immediately blamed Iran’s “enemies” for exaggerating the threat of coronavirus and enlisted the IRGC to help contain what he speculated to be a “biological attack.” In his televised speech on Sunday, marking the Persian New Year, Ayatollah Khamenei rejected American humanitarian assistance, suggesting the U.S. created the virus and is attempting to spread it throughout the country. Iran’s state-run media has also been advancing the conspiracy theory that the virus is an American-engineered bioweapon and that “Zionist elements” have targeted Iran with a particularly deadly strain.

Photo by Ali Khara/West Asia News Agency via REUTERS

The environmentalists are being blamed for the pandemic, as well. IRGC-backed Twitter accounts have linked the PWHF to the virus and bioterrorism, while Tehran’s prosecutor general, Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi, spread false claims that they were part of a “joint CIA-Mossad project to create crises in certain environmental areas.” In reality, the environmentalists were declared innocent by numerous Iranian officials, including the head of the Department of Environment and the minister of intelligence.

In both cases, the IRGC pointed to scapegoats instead of offering empirical solutions to address these national emergencies.

Most of the environmentalists, along with many other political prisoners, are being held in Iran’s Evin Prison, where at least five inmates have contracted the virus. The overcrowded wards in Evin have now run out of medical, sanitary and hygienic supplies. Last week, the environmentalist with the shortest prison sentence of four years, Abdolreza Kouhpayeh, was included in a reported mass pardon in an apparent effort to curb the outbreak, although only prisoners with less than five-year sentences were eligible.

In recent weeks, the UN Environment Programme reiterated its call for the release of the PWHF members, and a UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran demanded the temporary release of all Iranian political prisoners. In solidarity, Nasrin Sotoudeh, a renowned human rights lawyer who’s also being held in Iran, declared a hunger strike until all of Iran’s political prisoners are released.