Iran Shuts Down Newspaper For Doubting Official Coronavirus Data

The Jahane Sanat newspaper in Iran was shut down by the government Monday after it published quotes from experts that questioned the nation’s official COVID-19 data.

The daily paper’s Sunday edition it quoted epidemiologist Mohammed Reza Mahboobfar, who said that the government’s official case and death numbers may represent only 5% of the actual impact the virus has had on the Middle Eastern nation.

Mahboobfar, who reportedly worked on the government’s official COVID response, also claimed that the government had detected the virus in Iran up to a month earlier than when the first case was reported on Feb. 19. This was reportedly done to not disrupt the country's parliamentary elections and the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

“The administration resorted to secrecy for political and security reasons,” Mahboobfar said.

Editor-in-chief Mohammed Reza Said confirmed to the IRNA news agency that his publication had been shuttered by Iranian authorities. The outlet opened in 2004 and largely focused on business reporting.

Iran’s health ministry has denied the allegations that were published by Jahane Sanat. Sima Sadat Lari, a ministry spokeswoman, told IRNA that the official coronavirus figures were released in the most transparent manner possible and challenged Mahboobfar’s credibility, stating that he never worked for the Iranian government’s response campaign.

“The Health Ministry is not a political body and health of people is its main priority,” Lari said.

According to Johns Hopkins University, Iran has had nearly 329,000 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus and 18,616 deaths, ranking 10th in the world for total cases.