UPDATE, 1515 GMT:

The Health Ministry has raised the official death toll to 354, out of a total of 9,000 cases.

Radio Farda claims that the actual Coronavirus death toll in Iran is at least 927.

The site posted the figure on Tuesday, citing “official comments made by provincial authorities, sources affiliated with the Ministry of Health of the Islamic Republic, and local news agency reports”.

The Health Ministry raised the official death toll to 291 on Tuesday, among 8,041 cases.

See also Iran Daily, March 9: Coronavirus — “We Are Losing It. People Are Dying”

Radio Farda said its Health Ministry sources had confirmed 173 deaths in Tehran Province alone. It claimed 200 deaths in Gilan Province in northern Iran; at least 120 in Qom, the holy city where the outbreak began; and 103 in Isfahan.

Iranian authorities are providing case numbers but not death figures by province.

From the start of the crisis, Iran’s regime has been criticized for withholding or minimizing information. The Supreme Leader initially declared that the virus was a “Western plot” to depress turnout in the February 21 Parliamentary elections, and President Hassan Rouhani said the virus would soon be controlled with no need for quarantines.

See also Iran Daily, Feb 25: Regime in Confusion — and Possible Cover-Up — Over Coronavirus

The Health Ministry was pushed into its initial announcements by the claim of a Conservative MP on February 23 that 50 people had died in Qom and 250 were under observation. But even as officials began to raise the official toll, MPs and medical officials said they were under-reporting the cases.

Last week a medical official, in the National Headquarters to Contain and Fight Coronavirus, warned, “If the policy of complete quarantine in all infected areas of Iran is not implemented and if things go on as they are now, by late May the number of casualties of Coronavirus could reach 700,000.”

UN: Free Political Prisoners

The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, urged the regime to include political detainees among prisoners released on temporary furlough to help stem the spread of the virus.

On Monday, judiciary Ebrahim Raisi announced the furlough for about 70,000 but sources said only “two or three” political prisoners were among those released.

See also Iran Daily, March 10: Coronavirus Prison Furloughs — But Not for Political Detainees

Rehman confirmed on Tuesday that only those serving sentences of less than five years have been freed. Almost all of Iran’s political prisoners, including dual and foreign nationals, are serving longer terms.

“[They] are at real risk if they have not…got it [Coronavirus]. They are really fearful of the conditions,” Rehman told a press briefing in Geneva.

He also spoke of those seized during mass demonstrations in November over economic conditions and the Government’s sudden 50% to 200% rise in petrol prices: “I am highly concerned that hundreds, if not thousands, of November protesters detained are currently experiencing hardship in overcrowded facilities.”

The Rapporteur supported criticism of belated and insufficient efforts to contain Coronavirus, “In my estimation the state has done too little and too late….Across the country we have heard, and we have information, that little action was taken initially and as yet there is still inadequate action.”