 everyone. I would like to thank you for joining us. I'm Ariel Gold of Code Pink and I am with Fawad Izzadi of the University of Tehran and he is in Tehran right now and going to be speaking with us about the situation on the ground there. Fawad, thank you so much for joining us. Hello, can you hear me? Hello, can you hear me? Thank you for having me. Yes, so I can. Can you tell us a little bit of what things are like right now in Iran? I mean, we're watching the news here in the US and it is terrifying the the numbers that we hear coming out of Iran from coronavirus. Yes, we are having about 1500 to about 2000 new coronavirus patients and on average every day about 100, 150 people are passing away. So the situation is not good. The virus has spread to all provinces in Iran. Some are doing relatively better. Some are not. Some are in some provinces things are getting quite bad. So the situation is not good. You know, the Iranian new year is in a couple of days and generally at this time of the year people travel, people visit family. It's like Thanksgiving in the United States. That's when people visit family in different cities and there are not a lot of people are not doing that because of the coronavirus and like the United States, we have television channels advising people what to do and what not to do and obviously traveling is basically prohibited. People are encouraged to stay indoors, stay at home. So people are getting the same message that you are getting in the States with regard to how to deal with this disease that's quite deadly. Now, the one earlier than the United States. We might be losing sound for a second. Can you hear me? Okay, it's a little better now. Now we've been following some places like Italy, Spain and France that are now on a forced government lockdown. Is that the case in Iran? And if not, how many people are out in the streets? What is that like? Like France or Spain for that matter. So the God has encouraged people to stay indoors, but they have not prohibited people to leave home. So if you, you know, I went and got some food, I went to a grocery store earlier today and you're, you know, no one asks you where you're going. There is no, it's more or less normal. Less people are on the streets, obviously. So you have less traffic. You have been in Iran, you know, the traffic in Tehran could get ugly. So we don't see traffic that much. A lot of people are listening to the advice they're hearing on television and they're staying indoors, but there is no forced sort of government enforcement of the messages that people are getting on television. So if you go out, nobody is going to come and find you or arrest you or anything like that. Now, you know, I know we at Code Pink and in many places have been extremely worried about the situation with the sanctions. Before we talk about what the sanctions are like on medical supplies. What is the food situation like right now? Other supply that people's ability to take care of themselves in this time? You know, it's normal. So some of the pictures that we are seeing from the United States and some cities in Europe where people are sort of going to the shops and long lines and sort of people pushing each other. We have seen some pictures of that. We don't see that in Iran right now. So the stores are open. People are generally shopping the same way they did previously. We have higher prices on some item, some food item. So there is that difference of a little bit more expensive than what we had last month. But you know, because of sanctions, Iran's currency is devalued. So we have inflation. We have quite high inflation. But having higher prices is something normal here. It's a little bit more than normal, though. It's basically the jump on prices are relatively higher than what we normally see. But that's the big difference that you see. But when I went to the grocery store this morning, there were no lines. There were just normal. And the food stock and supplies were as normal. So we didn't see any difference in that sense. And yet at the same time, I know that I'm aware between 2018 and 2020, the price of many food items, including such things as milk and meats almost doubled due to the sanctions. Yes. That's true. That's true. So the inflation after Iran was not able, the oil sales were stopped. After that, after the Iranian currency was devalued, we have about 40%, 50% inflation, which is quite high. In normal situations, you have 3% or 4%, not 30% or 40% or 50%. So when you add that up, then when you compare prices of 2018, 2020, you obviously get huge. Huge difference. In some cases, prices have doubled, as you said. But that's a big problem. And how would you describe the feeling right now? Do people feel afraid? And what are the feelings towards the US as you are dealing with a pandemic, as the whole world is dealing with a pandemic, but under severe sanctions? General feeling is obviously people get scared when they hear the number of infected people, the number of people who have passed away. So there's a lot of concern for elderly parents to worry about the fact that although you are generally in a worse situation, you might have seen some videos from Iranian hospitals that because of the pressure that the nurses and the doctors are having at the hospital all the time, sometimes in order to relieve pressure, they start dancing and singing and you see some of the things like that. One thing about Iranians is that they have been under a lot of pressure for the last 40 some years. So they are used to shortage, generally used to inflation. Maybe one reason we are not seeing long lines outside the stores like in some other countries is because of course corona is quite a dangerous disease, but here people are used to difficulties. We had eight years of war, then we had a lot of sanctions especially since Trump came into office and after he got out of the nuclear agreement there were more sanctions and Iran is basically not able to sell oil. When you have in Iranian hospitals like other places, you have shortage of bed for patients to be able to get treatment and a lot of people realize that the shortages that exist is partly at least due to the sanctions that the country is facing. Iran's health system was doing okay relatively. In the last 40 years there have been some improvements. For example, the average median age in Iran in 1979 was 53. Now it's 73. So in the last 40 years the country has been able to increase the average the median age 20 years, which is quite a success. That's a sign that the country's health system is improving, that the sign that medicine is available relatively, and the health infrastructure has improved in the last many years. The problem that the government has in the last three years or so since Trump came into office is that they have not been able to keep the same level of investment in health infrastructure. They have not been able to give pay raises to doctors and because of that because of the pressures and of course medicine medicine is difficult because of sanctions, it's difficult to pay for medicine that's not produced internally. So that has an effect on the health system, the way services are provided to the people and a lot of people understand that and they understand the reason is for US foreign policy. We're hearing some calls right now for the sanctions to be lifted in an emergency response to this situation and looking at the fact that viruses like this, pandemics like this, do not stay in the country's borders anyway. Can you speak about what the feeling around is? We're hearing some calls right now for the sanctions to be lifted in an emergency response. Yes, you know, obviously the difficulties within Iran and United States dates back many decades but you're right when you have a pandemic that's not only affecting Iran, it's also affecting the whole region and this type of disease travel and when you have a pandemic like the coronavirus, the larger thing to do is if you be able to stop the virus in a country or in a city then you make sure that the spread is lower than before and that helps everybody all over the world. So when Iranians face sanctions, when they are not able to do as much as a normal country could do to stop the spread of virus, that's going to affect not only people in the Middle East, it's going to affect people in Europe and the United States and everywhere else because people travel. So it is logical to forego whatever political differences exist between the two governments and come up with a period of time at least that the sanctions are lifted until the world is free from the virus unless until the effect of the coronavirus is less relatively. You know this happens when countries go to war, sometimes they have ceasefires and for whatever reason they decide not to fight for a month or two or six months and then sometimes they go back to fighting what these fires are. We don't see that from the United States though. Yesterday the State Department announced new sanctions on Iran. You know one of the few industries that is trying to produce some foreign currency for the country is Iran's petrochemical industry that are able to sell some stuff outside the country. Unlike oil that has been more or less stopped, petrochemical products are selling and the US announced new sanctions against Iran's petrochemical industry yesterday right in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. So that was quite sad. Not only are keeping the sanctions that they had, they're actually adding sanctions instead of announcing a ceasefire or instead of reducing sanctions, they're actually increasing sanctions and it seems that happy about it. We have people inside the government, outside the government that seem to enjoy the fact that coronavirus is in Iran and is spreading. We had a tweet from Mark Duovitz. He is with Foundation for Defense of Democracies and he had a tweet some time ago talking about the fact that the coronavirus could achieve policy goals and sanctions. So this is quite sick. I can see people trying to achieve foreign policy goals in a country that's suffering and people are dying and these people are the same people who occasionally talk about the idea of some is that the Iranian people are wondering if you're really supporting us if Secretary Pompeo is actually supporting Iranian people or if President Trump is supporting Iranian people. Why are they increasing sanctions against the same people basically having a punishing ordinary citizen because that's what sanctions actually achieve, punish ordinary citizens. So we see a lot of hypocrisy in what the US government is saying and what they're actually practicing. Speaking of hypocrisy, we hear a lot of conversations here about both Iran and China's mishandling of the crisis in its early days and I say hypocrisy because the US is continuing and the Trump administration is continuing to gravely gravely mishandle the situation here in the United States. But I'm wondering if you can speak a little bit about that hypocrisy and feelings that Iranians might be having as you're watching the number of cases and fatalities grow here in the United States. It's been following of Trump's state beyond the United States. Right. You know, when we're seeing especially in the last number of days that the US is basically at the place that Iran was a couple of weeks ago, the number of cases are increasing, the number of deaths is increasing. That is obviously is going to have a negative effect on people internationally including people in Iran because the general image is that the US healthcare system is much more advanced than other countries. You know, they're all countries like Iran, third world countries. And so when we see the situation in the United States, there are not enough tests where the US government is late in terms of responding to a very dangerous virus. I heard President Trump talking to Fox News and saying that some people get better after they get the virus, they go to work and get better. That was quite strange because, you know, as I said, we were more advanced in terms of the virus spread in Iran and obviously that people don't get better if they go to work. They spread the virus more widely if they go to work. It was quite strange to see the US president and not knowing the depth of the crisis or pretending not to know, I'm not sure. I don't know if he actually didn't know or he was just calculating something else. When we see people die in the United States, the difficulties that people in Iran have is with US foreign policy, not American people. And so it is sad to see even in the United States with the more advanced medical system, you have even some of the basic points that people don't pay attention. I'm glad that in the last few days, people are taking the virus more seriously. So we see schools close. You might teach at the University of Tehran. So we have been close for the last three weeks. And I think at the same time that Iran did what Iran did, if the US was engaging, learning from Iranian experience or the Chinese experience at that time, I think that would have helped to stop the spread of virus in the United States. I think the Trump administration lost very valuable time by not taking the situation seriously. So I want to invite, we have a number of people participating in the call. And I see that many of them are people that have traveled in the past year and a half to Iran with Code Pink. So I want to invite any of you who have joined the call through Zoom. If you want to raise your hand, there's a little button there to say raise your hand. And then you can unmute yourself or and or you can type questions in the chat box. And in the meantime, I want to talk a bit more about some details of the effects of the sanctions on the medical industry there. And any hopes that you have for getting supplies in as well as other countries that are helping? China sent a good number of test kits to Iran some time ago. Iran is receiving any help that anyone is interested in sending. Iranians are proud. Iran is a proud nation. But at this time, they're accepting all help. Anyone that's willing to help Iran is accepting. With regard to medicine, there are two problems, basically. One problem is that one of the main sources of foreign currency for Iran is oil sales. And for a number of months now, Iran is not able to sell oil. And the result is that there is not enough foreign currency. That's the first problem. The second problem is that for medicine, the government can always find money through sales of other products internationally. But the second problem is that Iran, even with the money that the country has, is not able to buy medicine because of banking sanctions. So Iran cannot send the money to the company that's selling medicine to Iran. Officially, medicine is exempt from sanctions. But in practice, medicine becomes a sanctioned product because Iran is not able to pay. Not because Iran doesn't have the money. Iran can find money for medicine. But because of the banking sanctions and Iran not able to use the banking system that's used in the world. And that is obviously causing a lot of problems for Iran. And suggestion would be to stop both sanctions, both oil sales and banking sanctions for a month or two or three or as long as we have this coronavirus epidemic. And then the US government could go back to the previous situation if they really wanted to. But at least for a month or so or as long as we have this virus to lift sanctions. And in reality, that's not what we are saying. In reality, we have organizations like United Against Nuclear Iran actually going and talking to drug companies to prevent them from interacting with Iran. They're specifically targeting drug companies, not other companies, drug companies, to scare them and sort of make sure that they don't engage with Iran. And the reason is because they think if drug companies start dealing with Iran, maybe there are other companies that want to do the same. But they want to stop any interaction with Iran, including countries that deal in medical equipment or medicine. And even the European government had this plan, they called it. This was a channel for Iran to be able to get this type of humanitarian aid through a mechanism that the Europeans started. But the Trump administration was quite forceful with Europe and blocked that European initiative. And the Trump administration obviously knew the Europeans are not going to sell arms to Iran. They're going to have this channel to transfer humanitarian aid that Iran was paying for. So the Trump administration and the organizations like the Foundation for Defense of Democracies or United Against Nuclear Iran are working very hard every day to make sure more Iranians die every day. That's what they're engaging in, which is, I think that's criminal. Absolutely. That is criminal. I see that one of our participants has unmuted themselves. If you have a question and would like to ask it, please go ahead. Okay. Hi. This is Beth Harris. I met you when I was in Iran. I just want to share my concern and solidarity and gratitude for our ongoing citizens diplomacy. Well, our government is acting in such a rogue, cruel way. I'm wondering during a time of pandemic like this, and this one in particular, what what kinds of citizen diplomacy do we mean? And also, I wonder if you have advice. We're now entering the stage of social isolation. And you all have been through this for a while now. And, you know, if you have any advice about what works to protect our people? Yes, very good questions, Beth. I remember meeting you and I hope you are able to come back. That trip was, I think, quite successful. I think on your first question, what you are doing right now, this is a citizen diplomacy. I teach at the University of Tehran. Ariel is an activist with CodePink. Others are obviously concerned about the humanitarian situation in Iran and hear what's going on. And then they can talk about what's going on with their friends or family or their community. And that's what we need right now. As I said, the difficulties between Iran, Iranian government, US government has been going on for many decades. What we need to do is to pause and make sure that especially at this time, the humanitarian aid that people need here is addressed and the sanctions are lifted at this temporarily. And in order to do this, if the case of the activities of the US government against Iran and people is not heard by the American people, then they continue doing what they have been doing. So the more people know, I think it's going to be better. And the fact, unfortunately, is that what Iran has been experiencing for the last month or so is going to be experienced by the people in the United States. So we are in the same situation and people, it is going to be something very close to people. This is not going to be something in distance. People feel the effects of the virus themselves and they feel what Iranians have been feeling for the last month or so. And I hope that helps to realize what's going on. At the same time, that's going to be harmful to people, which is sad. That's going to give a new perspective on a lot of people that don't see these things firsthand. On your second question, your advice that you're getting on television is good advice. Follow that. Even I can say President Trump has been doing much better in the last day or so in terms of what people need to do. So he's realizing what the U.S. President needs to do at least in the last 48 hours or so as I have been following. So the basic idea, wash your hands, stay at home, these are the things that are going to at the end of the day help with stopping the spread. And I've been going out because I get busy sometimes. Although the school has closed, I've been out almost every day in the last number of weeks. We have a new year holidays now starting today. So we are going to be on holiday, which is going to help because people don't have to go out as much. And when we are home, engaging in activities that are going to be helpful to you personally reading books, watching documentaries, educating yourself about what's going on, it's going to be important. This is the time that people can use to reflect on life. This is, you know, the life is what you're expressing in Tehran. The life is much slower now. And so as you slow down in your activities, that gives you time for reflection, that gives you time for thinking about what is important in life. I lost a friend to coronavirus about 10 days ago. So I've been thinking about him a lot in the last 10 days or so. So these are the important things in life. So valuing what's important I think is going to be a benefit of the current situation. So a question that I have is that Iran is far from the only country that the United States has sanctions against. And we are right now starting to see the first cases in Venezuela, a country that was already, that already was in much worse shape in terms of its healthcare system than Iran. I wonder if you have been in touch with people there and your concerns as they begin to deal with coronavirus under sanctions? You know, we hope that Venezuela's climate is warmer. We hope that they're not going to be as affected as we are or you are in the States. But as I understand, there's already cases in Venezuela and they are going to be like us. In fact, if the virus acts the same way as it's acting in Iran, I think it's going to be, I think Venezuela is going to experience more difficulties because you know, Iran has been under sanctions longer. So Iran's budget dependence on oil sales is about 30%. I think that number for Venezuela is much longer, much larger. So they depend on oil sales more and have visited Venezuela before. So I know that health infrastructure is less advanced when you compare that to Iran. And so they're going to have a tougher time. So what I propose with regard to causing sanctions on Iran is going to be a proposal for all countries that are under sanctions because at the end of the day, I think all countries are suffering from Corona. And you know, what makes me wonder is that in the United States, we have the U.S. House of Representatives that is controlled by the Democratic Party. And one would expect at least in the House, we see legislation that would have this idea implemented. You know, we need legislations that would ask the U.S. government to cause these sanctions, the countries that are sanctioned to give them a break. And this may or may not pass in the Senate. You know, we had about two weeks ago legislation that was designed to stop Trump from attacking Iran militarily. And that passed in the Senate. A number of Republican senators actually voted for that bill because they didn't trust Trump with U.S. military. I guess they didn't find him stable enough to make that judgment. So a similar thing could happen in the U.S. Senate. Maybe there are some Republican senators that actually vote for a bill that would cause sanctions on Iran and Venezuela and Cuba and other countries that are going to be affected by this virus. And it would be more difficult for President Trump to veto that type of bill. You know, we're watching the primaries in the United States. And I think Senator Sanders had a much more positive view with regard to the sanctions situation. He was actually sometimes the only senator that voted against sanctions. Like the vote went 99 to 1. That one senator that did not vote for sanctions was Sanders. Unfortunately, he's not doing that well on the primaries. And that is sad not only for his supporters in the United States, but also sad for the countries that are under the receiving end of the sanctions. But as I said, since majority of people in the U.S. House of representatives are Democrats, one would expect them to actually have legislations that would cause these sanctions on the countries that are suffering from them, at least for a while. I see we have another question from Anna. Go ahead, Anna. And this will be our last question. You can go ahead and... Oh, never mind. I think I had something wrong. Well, before we end, any other thoughts of hope that you have, aside from the wonderful pictures of the healthcare workers keeping their spirits up through dance and any other thoughts of hope on how we can act as a global community right now, rather than isolated countries? I know myself, I feel like here is a moment for us to see how fragile borders are and how global we are as we, in this moment, can be shown how to care for each other across such borders. I agree. Life is too short. People are much more interconnected than before. In old days, a town or a village gets a disease, everybody dies and that's the end of it. Nowadays, that's not going to be the case. If you have a problem in one part of the world, that's going to affect others. If you're talking about virus, then you see what's going to happen. So I think that teaches us a lesson with regard to actually caring about other people in other places, because that famous saying that it's in one place the suffering that people have experienced in Iran because of sanctions, because of wars, because of difficulties and the now with this virus is going to be experienced by some other people in other places, the virus part of it at least, which is quite sad. So that gives us a reason to be more connected, to have a common goal and to make sure that people are saying touch. And I need to thank you for organizing this webinar. And the more we have this type of context, I think, as Beth said, these are citizen diplomacy initiatives that are going to be, I think, quite good. I know last time we talked, we were supposed to have our students join us and we never knew that schools are going to be closed next time we talk. So the more we engage, I think it's going to be better for all of us. We would still love to have some of your students on and I will chat with you about whether that is possible with the university out there. But I want to thank you so much for speaking with us and I'll be staying in touch with you and we send all of our love and support and we'll continue working here in the US to get the sanctions lifted and to come together as one community. Thank you for everybody who's online and the people who are going to watch this on Facebook later on. Please keep in touch. Thank you so much everyone.